Finishing Strong: Quilt-As-You-Go & Binding Basics

In this class, Catherine Redford takes the mystery (and anxiety) out of the last stage of quiltmaking—joining quilted blocks and finishing edges so your work looks intentional, polished, and truly complete. With her clear, down-to-earth teaching style, she shows you how to move from a pile of pre-quilted squares or samples to a cohesive quilt top using a simple quilt-as-you-go method, then frame it with bindings or facings that lie flat and look professional. If you’ve ever stalled at the end of a project because you weren’t sure how to join blocks neatly or make a clean binding, this course gives you a practical system you can trust.

You’ll start by turning individual quilted blocks into joined rows and full quilts using front and back sashing that’s carefully proportioned for a neat finish on both sides. Catherine walks you through trimming blocks, cutting sashing, and using a walking foot to manage bulk and keep everything straight and square as the quilt grows. From there, she shifts the focus to edge treatments: mastering double-fold binding, understanding when to cut straight grain versus bias, preventing seams from landing in the corners, and forming crisp miters that frame your quilt without waves or weak spots. You’ll see both machine-finished and hand-finished options, so you can choose whether durability, speed, or invisible stitching matters most for each project.

For quilts that call for a clean, modern or gallery-style edge, Catherine also introduces facings as an alternative to traditional binding. You’ll learn how to add side facings and corner triangles, trim and turn the corners without excess bulk, and secure everything so the design runs right to the edge while the back remains tidy and ready for hanging. Across every lesson, the emphasis is on simple, repeatable routines and small details that make a visible difference—straight joins, flat intersections, smooth bindings, and corners that behave. By the end, you’ll have a dependable, step-by-step approach for finishing strong, whether you’re assembling a sampler of practice blocks or completing a favorite showpiece quilt.

This course also includes a two-chapter excerpt from Modern Machine Quilting that complements the finishing techniques you’ll learn, giving you an extra layer of guidance as you put everything into practice.