Tool Talk: Binding

There are all manner of helpful tools for keeping your marathon lengths of bias binding clean, tidy, and at the ready, from winding cards to wooden spools you wear around your neck.  I am a combination of too lazy and too cheap for any of those - I'm not coordinated enough to wind my binding around a spool or card as I iron (I can just see myself getting halfway done, then knocking the spool off the cupboard, watching helplessly with iron in hand as it unrolls across the floor); nor am I keen to spend not inconsiderable dollars on a tool I might not like - that money could be used for vital thread!

Instead, I fold my binding in an accordion stack as I iron, then tuck it all into a clean tin can.  Standard 16 oz cans work well for lap and toddler quilts, 32-oz tomato cans for something bigger: 

There's my binding - at the ready without being entirely in the way, with a solid little bottom that's surprisingly resistant to being knocked over.