Tale of the cursed binding....

I was thinking of holding this story off until Halloween but I am sure by then I will have forgotten it...or at least hope I will. How many things can go wrong binding a quilt? It is a much longer list than I ever expected and I believe I have hit every bump on that road at full speed the past few weeks. Even more unexpected is just how many of those things can go wrong with just one of the quilt!

First in the interest of fair disclosure - I dislike binding at the best of times and really dislike binding with deadlines. You can guess where I am at right now!
I have only two quilts left to bind to be ready for the show in October. One of those quilts has taken more time than the other 8 combined! It is my Scrappy Bargello - Vale of Evesham Quilt. The irony is I loved making the quilt. Relatively low stress pattern with lots of fabrics. I love how the quilting came out with just a continuous line leaf and vine all over the quilt. It was all just too easy so the quilt gremlins declared war on the binding of this quilt.

First, when I bought the border fabric for the quilt I also bought some fabric to make the binding. I didn't do a great job of labeling the fabric and promptly used it in another project. Whoops....

No Problem...I rustled up a piece of dark brown that that worked as well and went to town making binding. I even started to pin the binding on....when it hit me. I hadn't measured. So of course the binding is 6 inches short! A run to the closet...no more of this fabric and absolutely nothing that worked well with it. grrrr.

So out comes another fabric - an old dark green mottled batik. There is a full yard so I know it will make plenty of binding. I cut the entire yard up into strips...I sew the strips together. The pile is on the ironing board when the phone rings. When I come back the pile is on the floor and the cup of water that my Dh left on the ironing board is sitting upside down on top of the wet fabric. (On the ironing board is a cat.....) When I pick up the pile I notice a green spot on the carpet...heck there is now a green spot on my khaki pants...could even be a green spot on the gold cat pulling on the other end of the wet and wrinkly and dye discharging binding. (And yes I had washed this before putting it into my stash!) Three rinsings it is still bleeding green...even worse it is stretching into a bias edged sink monster.

Deep breath and trip to the quilt store later. I have some brown and green batik...it is in the washing machine. Today I think I will work on the 1930's trip around the world....On a totally different subject...does anyone recognize this little sewing machine? I bought it at an auction in England but it doesn't have any name or even country where it was made on the the machine or the case. It is entirely made of metal and firmly attached to a wooden base. The wooden base fits into the case exactly so I assume the case to be original.