It is September already, so my two month binding torture experiment has come to an end. I kept my ugly little binding sample on the dryer along with a tally sheet. I threw the sample in with every wash and dry for two months. My husband also washes clothes occasionally, and he chose not to take part in the data collection, so there are fewer washes and dries than there would have been if I did all the wash myself. This binding was sent through 22 regular wash and dry cycles. It was also sent through 19 gentle wash and dry cycles for a total of 41 cycles. This is much more wear and tear than any binding could expect to experience in the lifetime of a quilt since I would never send a quilt through even one regular cycle, much less 22 of them. The idea was to torture the piece, however, and torture it I did.

The piece is extra crinkly, but the binding has held up well. There is one place along one of the corners of the binding that has frayed a bit. I’m not concerned with that, however, because that could have happened with any binding.

I was only interested in seeing if any of the tiny seams near the edge came undone because of the excessive washing.  None of the seams have come lose, so I feel confident in using this binding method on my diamond heirloom quilt.

I will begin adding the final row of hunter green hexagons around the diamond quilt this week.

I’ve made progress on the batik flower garden quilt, but I will save that report for a future week. As I move forward working on more than one project at a time I will probably report on one or another of those projects each week, but not all of them. I will sum up the activity that has taken place since that project was last featured. I think that will be more interesting than reporting bits and pieces of progress on multiple projects each week.

Now that this binding method has proven to be viable, I am considering writing a pdf tutorial for it and making it available.