WIP Wednesday: Red, White, and Binding Hell

Happy 4th of July! Welcome to Earf. (One of the internet's most persistent misquotes--Will Smith clearly says "Earth" and YouTube agrees. At any rate, yay Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum for figuring out how to defeat the aliens with a Mac PowerBook and a WWII airplane.)

Anyway. I sewed a bit yesterday and today, though I didn't make as much progress as I wanted to, primarily because I am lazy. It happens. But I did make enough progress that all I have left to do is sew the binding down on the back.

Speaking of binding, let's get to the binding hell of the post title. This binding did not go well for me.

There was a lot of this happening. :(

In addition to the little "situation" pictured above, I ended up having a lot of extra binding by the time I finished a side, particularly on the two long sides. I pinned really well and appropriately tautly (I thought) so it really flummoxed me, as well as made me pretty angry (I may or may not have told my boyfriend I was going to burn the quilt.) I didn't know what to do with it, so when I got to the end with the excess, I re-mitered the corner, and then folded the excess like so:

Technique pictured in no sewing book, ever.

After I folded the binding over to the other side, the corner was a bit thicker, but it didn't look too bad, so I guess it was an ok solution. But why did this happen? This is only my third binding, but I didn't have trouble at all with the first two. But I think the problem is more with my equipment than me (that sounds like I'm evading responsibility...) I have an old, basic Singer and no walking foot. My first quilt binding was attached with my mom's fancy-schmancy new Bernina (with walking foot.) My second quilt binding was just that little table runner which was much more thoroughly quilted and also much smaller with less room for the binding to get bunched up over a distance. So I'm wondering if I just didn't have enough hands to make this workable without the walking foot.

In any event, I'm going to wait until I have access to a machine with a walking foot when I do my friend's wedding quilt, which is my next project.

It was highly irritating, but after I flipped it over and pinned it, it still doesn't look too bad from the front. It'll be fine once it's washed and finished, I think. Still qualifies for Freshly Pieced's WIP Wednesday.

A few other pictures from the process:

1) Basting: I thought I'd have to go to my office to find enough hard floor for this, but my kitchen had juuuuust enough room (kind of). :) Also, I now know that my kitchen is only slightly bigger than 40" by 50"!

Eat your hearts out, greedy women on House Hunters.

2) Backing: I'm really happy with this fabric. I found it in the sale section! It matches so nicely and it's really soft. So many wins right there. I'm still a bit on the fence regarding my feelings toward the binding, but it's too late now. :)

Backing: "Journeys" (Free Spirit), Binding: "What a World" (P&B Textiles)

Anyway, I medicated my binding woes with chocolate pie. It always helps.

My kitchen has the lighting of a cave. Now you know why I'm not a food blogger.

I hope you all had lovely holidays (if you're in the U.S., otherwise, I hope you had a lovely Wednesday). I walked a couple of dogs at the shelter this morning--an 80-lb. Rottweiler who couldn't believe how amazing life and walks and the whole world in general were, and a 5-lb., 10-year-old Chihuahua who can barely walk from an old dog attack injury--making it my most disparate dog walking experience ever. My boyfriend and I independently decided that we would make ourselves burgers in lieu of having any plans, and once we discovered that our brains worked exactly the same way on this point, we had a "burger contest." As one might expect from a distance burger contest, the results were inconclusive. All we know is, in the immortal words of Ron Swanson, that "turkey can never beat cow."

I love you, Ron.

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