While I don’t add a lot of borders to my quilt. When I do I try to have them add interest. Rather than slapping plain fabric borders around my quilt. As with all things there is a time a place for a simple plain fabric quilt border. But it’s so much more fun to add a little spice and interest when growing your quilt with borders by piecing them. A little more work, but worth the effort.
When adding a pieced border to your quilt there are a few to consider. First you may want to add a stop border before adding your pieced border. This gives a place for the eye to rest. It also a separation from the quilt body and the pieced border. I also like to do this to save me with the math. It’s easier to add a stop border to get your quilt to a size that will fit your blocks. Than it is to piece blocks at weird sizes to make them fit around your quilt.
The next thing to consider is the theme of your quilt. Consider repeating elements found in the body of your quilt round the border. I repeated the triangle shape in my kaleidoscope blocks in the border of Nautical Nights. With Divine I repeated the shape of the leaves to create a drunkard’s path border.
May you are trying to turn a square quilt into a rectangle with your borders. If you are using this is your goal here are a few tips. Try adding skinnier borders to the sides of your quilt while keeping the same theme in your borders. I did this when I created this variation of Sunshine on a Cloudy Day for my son. By altering the direction of the flying geese I was able to increate the length while keeping with the theme.
Medallion quilts are a fun way to look for border ideas. You can do a Google search or peruse Pinterest. You are sure to be inspired.
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