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Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Tutorial: A Simple Bordering/Framing Method for your Quilts or Blocks

My quilting teacher commented on the way I make my borders around my quilts and I hadn't really thought that I was doing anything new or novel - I thought everyone did their borders this way. She took a photo to show a fellow quilting teacher so I thought I would post this information and see if it helps anyone else.

For the purpose of showing how I put together borders this demo is not to scale. (And when I take pictures on the macro setting of my camera my images always seemed curved - does anyone else have this issues?)

I have used a orange rectangle to represent the 'quilt' or block. I make a long strip of fabric by sewing equal lengths together (crosswise grain) when I'm making large borders. I do not have joins in the border fabric if I am bordering blocks. 


 I sew the border in the following order and direction.
When you sew the first strip across the top from right to left leave about 1/2 " gap at the edge of the top left corner (see below.) Leave a loose piece of the strip on the top left corner. If your strip is 3" wide leave a little over 3" - if your strip is 6" leave a little over 6" etc


Press & trim and add the next strip that goes top to bottom on the right side of the quilt/block. 


Continue with the bottom strip again going from right to left.



On your final strip sew from the bottom left to the top left of the quilt. Your 1st strip and your last strip will still not be connected in the corner. 


Connect the strips by folding the top strip down. 


Sew the strips together. 


Press & trim. 



The back of the border will look like this. 


Happy borders!

Other quilting tips:
Basting & Layering Tip
Machine Chain Piecing
at

6 comments:

  1. WendySeptember 5, 2013 at 12:30 PM

    thanks so much for sharing. I'd been thinking that I wanted to border some paper pieced blocks I've made like this, but thought it would be really complicated!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. UnknownSeptember 13, 2013 at 4:43 PM

      Thank you so much for leaving a comment Wendy - I'm glad this helped.

      Delete
  2. crafter1953September 5, 2013 at 10:19 PM

    thanks for sharing, I do mine almost the same way but you made it easier. I also thought that was the way it was supposed to be done. I am glad you showed someone how you did it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. UnknownSeptember 13, 2013 at 4:44 PM

      Me too!!! I had no idea - shows how much I know about quilting. I don't think I will change from this method though.

      Delete
  3. SueSeptember 12, 2013 at 2:25 PM

    OK, that's the way I sew ribbon on my pillow tops. I hadn't thought of doing my quilt the same way. Duh! Thanks for the tip.

    ReplyDelete

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