Finishing Edges

Well it’s official, I took 3 weeks off for a knee replacement, but I’m back. Not 100% yet, but able to sit and stitch the projects I had lined up for this very lazy, but necessary, healing time.

I used to hate to sit and stitch bindings. It was honestly my least favorite part of every quilt, as it just seemed tedious. There weren’t any design decisions left for this piece. All the fabric choices and 1,000 colors of fabric – chosen. All the stitching and pressing and quilting – done. Once the binding is machine stitched on the front, the only thing left to do is hand-stitch the binding on the back. It was boring.

When I shared this with a very talented friend and fellow artist, she just looked at me and laughed. What was so funny?  

She told me to think of binding as putting a frame around my work. While you can’t always see my bindings, they finish the work. If I had beautiful photos, (which are legion at my house) would I just make large, expensive prints of them and use thumbtacks in the corners to hang them on my wall? Well, I may have if I was still a poor college student, but I value my photographs.

I value my textile work. The abstract art quilts, the baby quilts, the custom quilts, the unusual and sometimes zany color combinations I create – and they all deserve this last stop where my hands work on every inch of the piece…with love.

Beth