Time is flying and I hope you are having fun! We're already at Week 3 of our quilt along. This week, it’s time to add the borders to our fun flip flop center panel. We’ll add 2 sets of borders to complete our table runners.
Inner Borders
These are the colored borders that frame the center flip flop panel. Using the typical ¼” seam for quilting, sew these borders to the center panel with our fun flip flop appliques. I usually like to stitch the side borders first, then add the top and bottom borders.
Outer Borders
Once you’ve sewn the colorful inner borders, let’s add the white outer borders just like you sewed the colorful inner borders.
It’s not necessary to piece the borders if you cut them the width of your fabric according to the pattern instructions. The border strips will be long enough to sew in one piece and you'll use one of those strips for both of the shorter sides. However, if you are using scrap fabric and piece your borders, I'll share a couple of techniques and some tips for piecing borders.
Technique 1: Mitered Borders
- Place strips right sides together with the top one at a 90 degree angle and sew diagonally across from the top left corner to the bottom right corner. This is the same technique that's used to piece binding strips together.
- Once the seam is sewn, trim the extra triangle pieces off.
*TIP: I draw a diagonal line across the top border piece to help me get my seam straight.
Advantages:
- Mitered borders are typically less visible than straight-pieced borders.
Disadvantages:
- The downside is that the border strips need to placed at a perfect 90 degree angle and the stitching diagonally across the border needs to be very straight.
- If the seam or angle is not accurate, you can get some ease in your border that may be problematic when sewing other borders on or when you go to quilt your quilt top or runner.
- Depending on the fabric print, I've found it challenging to match border fabric sometimes.
What is "ease" and why is it a problem?
- Ease happens when the fabric is a little bigger than the fabric side stitched into a seam. The fabric may look like it has ripples on the edge or there's excess fabric. These ripples, or extra fabric may not lay straight when the runner or quilt top is quilted and you may have to "ease" or extra fabric to deal with when quilting the top or runner.
- In some cases, it's not possible to straighten out all the ease or extra fabric and you may get tucks and puckering on the quilt top when it's quilted.
Considerations:
The Flip Flop Hop Runner has small enough borders so, extra ease is likely not going to be an issue. However, if you are working with large quilt top with borders of 3” (8cm) or more, borders not pieced accurately can cause those issues. I personally have stopped mitering my borders and use straight borders to prevent extra ease on the edge of my quilts and to prevent issues with the extra ease when the quilt is on the longarm. I’ve found it harder to be more accurate on the 90 degree angle with larger borders and prefer the straight border technique.
Technique 2: Straight Borders
- Place strips right side together and sew about ¼” from the raw edge to create a long strip. Press the strip one way and sew the border onto your project.
Advantages:
- You can often match border fabric easier with straight borders.
- Your border will likely have less ease and ripple
Disadvantages:
- The border seams may be more visible in your quilt. However, I find once a quilt top is quilted you don’t really focus on the seams – just the beautiful quilt and quilting stitches.
At the end of the day, I encourage you to use the technique that works best for you to piece your borders. That’s one thing I love about quilting – there are always different techniques to try that work best for our preferences!
Next Week
Now that our borders are on, we’re ready to quilt our runner next week. We’ll explore some different quilting ideas on both a domestic machine and a longarm quilter. So, celebrate your progress this week and get ready for some quilting fun next week!
Tour de Fabric
I hope you've enjoyed the classes and quilt alongs as part of Tour de Fabric. This week has more new classes to enjoy for the week. Be sure to visit https://www.quiltnlearn.com/ and login to see what's new this week!