Happy Endings

Great directions and beautiful pictures. So easy to understand.

I'm a beginning quilter and this book was recommended in a Quilt Binding class. Now I'm disappointed not to find other beginning quilting books in this series (I think that they're out of print, but I haven't looked very hard because I have found a lot of great information for free online). This book has great illustrations and it's colorful and it calmly describes bindings. I also recommend looking for websites and online videos to help you with quilting queries. I have looked up "quilt bindings" and "paper piecing" and in both cases found some sites and videos more helpful than others. I have yet to find a beginning "machine quilting" video or description that is as helpful, but I did find a great discussion of all of the things that can contribute to skipped or missed stitches when machine quilting. The point is that these quilting books may be less popular given the number of resources available online, but this book does a great job as a binding resource. There are helpful illustrations here about the decision between straight-grain vs. bias binding for different binding fabrics. It turns out that binding is intimidating but not as difficult ultimately as many other quilting skills such as matching corners. It turns out that binding corners is not that difficult. I think that the best recommendation comes from my classroom instructor who describes going to the 1/4 inch point from the corner and then stitching to the corner--using this as the fold for your mitered corner makes everything easy. So even if you send out your quilt to a long arm quilter, with a book like this or some of the online resources, you can do the binding. Good luck with your quilts!

I remember seeing the first edition of this book years ago but was not a quilter so did not pay much attention (other than to snerk at the title). Recently I started quilting and when researching resources for binding, came across this title. I prefer my reference materials to be professionally printed/bound vs PDF so I was pleased to find this copy.It has everything I’d hoped for. My bindings are much smoother and easier now. I have ideas for completing a few projects that I’d not thought of on my own. It’s an excellent reference that is easy to read.

My least favorite part of quilting is bindings. This book was recommended and it does have a not of different ideas about bindings. It gives instructions about praire points; regular bindings, etc and has good instructions (step by step) how to do. Purchasing from an off Amazon vendor was not problem at all and I had never done this before. Amazon takes care of it all and informs you about the progress every step of the way. Hurray Amazon

There are lots of helpful techniques in this book. This will not teach you how to quilt, or give you patterns--this is strictly about finishing, binding and other edge techniques. I got the idea for finishing my first major quilt with "Prairie Points" from this book. There are nice diagrams also. This is the second copy of this book I have bought. I was always bringing my first copy over to my mom's house for reference and ideas, so I bought her a copy of her own. Anyway, there is a finishing technique in this book for just about every type of quilt project. Very helpful. Also, not a super thick and heavy book--easy to store and carry with you.

This is one of the essential quilting books. It clearly explains bindings and backings. It should be on every quilter's bookshelf.

Happy Endings: Finishing the Edges of Your Quilt / 978-1-56477-500-9I am an avid quilter, although I would still describe myself as a "beginner", even after years of quilting and several successful queen sized quilts and wall hangings. There's just so much to learn, I don't think I'll ever be a "master". One thing I am never really comfortable with is the edgings and bindings, and I figured this book would be perfect for me. Unfortunately, after a lot of reading, a lot of thought, and a lot of agonizing, I just feel that this book fails to deliver.There's some variety here, and everything you see on the cover is delivered in the book, with gorgeous color pictures showing the end product and slightly less useful sketches that are supposed to detail how to achieve the product - I say these sketches are less useful because they are very small and it is often difficult to tell what motion/action the author is trying to convey. I think more sketches, along the "this, then this, then this" would have conveyed the idea better. It's an extremely slender book - why didn't they just add a few more pages of sketches and explanations? Or at least cut back the admittedly beautiful "final product" pictures to make room for the "how to get there" explanations.Back to the material, the author has a definite bias towards "thin" bindings - edges that are less than half an inch wide and look very modern. I tend to prefer wider edges for my large quilts, but the techniques are probably the same. There are also curvy specialty endings, and different bindings with prairie points. Since I still don't feel like an expert at the simple bindings, I was looking forward to a detailed description with a "Eureka!" moment where everything I'd read in my general quilting Quilt books would suddenly snap into place. Unfortunately, I just can't seem to get that with this book. The descriptions are fine for how to attach a border (even I could have figured that out), but as for how to fold the border over, machine sew it into place, and not have the stitches miss the fabric entirely or wind up clumsily in the middle of the back border, this book doesn't detail. There's almost no instruction whatsoever for how to ensure that the back of the quilt looks as good as the front, and the fact that none of the author pictures shows a backside makes me rather suspicious. I'm not expecting miracles, but I'd like a surefire machine-stitch way to ensure that the back of my border doesn't look like a drunken stumbling path. Even using thousands of pins, it's still possible and likely that folds will catch or that a stitch will slip, and finding out after the fact is most annoying.The best simple binding technique I have learned (from this book and others) is to sew the border onto the back side, fold the edges over the front, and then sew the front folds down into place. But that doesn't solve the issue of how to make the back look equally nice and straight, and the only thing I can recommend is tons and tons of pins. I cannot help but think there must be an easier way.There's an awful lot of fancy binding here as well, most looking very modern and snazzy, although they probably fit the decor of a teenager's bedroom better than an adult living room. Maybe it's me, but these instructions are even more difficult to decipher and the diagrams are very confusing. There are very few measurements provided here, probably because this is supposed to be a "method" book that can be adapted for any size, but I would have welcomed some estimates.I have a hard time deciding what to rate this book. I settled on three stars because the color pictures are pretty and somewhat inspiring, and I'm willing to believe that maybe I'm just too stupid to understand the diagrams here. But for me, at least, every time I pick up this book, hoping to master a new binding technique, I end up setting it down in disappointment thirty minutes later and going back to the basic binding techniques from my general quilting books. Shame, because I was hoping for more, especially from such an attractive book.~ Ana Mardoll

Wonderfully informative. Great reference book to have

It gave me inspiration and ideas to finish my UFO'S. Easy to understand instructions.

excellent book will no doubt be used many times

Brilliant!Just what I needed.As the author states in the preface-so many quilting books assume you know how to bind your quilt but never give you adequate instructions if you don't.This book shows you very clearly and simply all the binding options and how to do them.

This is the answer to all corner problems which I have had in the past. Now with excellent advice and many wonderful pictures and advice I will tackle these corners. It is a must for all quilters a great present.