Shortcuts to Show Binding

Let me begin by saying I knew there was such a thing as show binding, but I had never seen it done. All my rugs so far have been whipped. I had seen a couple of photos of show binding, but none of those photos was in my possession for reference.

The rug under construction had taken me two years to complete. It was punched and hooked with wool yarn and wool strips on monk’s cloth. It measured roughly 3' by 4' and had a perimeter of 154 running inches, more or less. Did I want to whip it? Well, that’s a lot of small stitches close together, with errant bits of backing poking through where they are not wanted