I actually found some binding in my stash for Sparkling Gems! Because of that pieced border, I thought I was going to have to go shopping instead of my usual tactic of using leftover backing or whatever random scraps I could find in the right size.



I wanted dark blue, but all of my dark blue is set aside for another quilt and after hunting sales and my stash to get that stuff together I didn't want to sacrifice any of it. There's some dark blue Kona Cotton in the sewing room, but it's not enough and I don't know where it is anyway. And it was going to be at least a week before I got near a fabric store.

Then I dug into my bag of scrap binding to find something for a baby quilt and saw the green binding. One of Mom's quilting friends somehow made twice as much as she needed for her quilt and threw the rest into the trash, then Mom fished it out and passed it along to me. I'd remembered it was there, but was sure there couldn't be enough for Sparkling Gems. Turns out there was, with a yard or two left over!

It's a little narrower than I cut my own bindings, but it fell into my lap and goes well with my border, so I'm a happy quilter.