Squaring up before adding the binding strip
 

I thought I read somewhere that it's ok to sew your binding strip along the edge of your quilt before you square it up. Am I way off base with that? In otherwords, can I just leave my quilt sandwich bigger around the edges (not square it up), sew on the binding and then trim? Is there any advantage to this? Thanks!!

How would you know where to sew the binding, or am I missing something here?

Well, I ran a basting stitch all the way around the edge of the quilt top.

You'd cut your binding off when you trimmed. It should be squared up first.

Obviously I had something mixed up big time. Thank you for clearing that up for me.

I sew my bindings on then trim. Started doing it this way after watching a tutorial.

That's the way Fons & Porter books do it. I tried it once, but didn't like it.

You must square the top up before you sandwich it. You then sew the binding on, and by doing it this way you make sure to have batting in the binding, then you cut off the batting and backing to the left of the binding. This is not squaring up the quilt as the top has already been squared up.

I read a suggestion somewhere to use this technique on quilt tops without borders. It will preserve the pieced seams and the fabric edges while the quilt is being handled during the quilting process.