question about borders

[acornmom]

Forgive my REALLY beginner question about borders, but I've only done baby quilts with patterns before and this is the first time I've attempted a bigger quilt with out a pattern.

I took a beginning quilt class and we made a rail fence 48x60 quilt top for the class. Now I want to make it a little bigger and borders to help square it up. Sooooooo I have fabric that I want to use but how do I make the strips long enough? Will it look absolutely horrible if I cut strips the wof and then sew them together? The only way I can figure out how to do it with out piecing strips together is to buy yards of fabric and cut the strips horizontally instead of wof and that seems like a big waste.

Thanks for your help!

[sewbug]

I've sewn a long border and binding pieces in strips together before. It's fine to sew a border in pieces to get the length you need. It looks better to sew the pieces at an angle. If the border has a particular pattern then you can match up each sewn end, like matching wallpaper.

[Quiltcreator]

acorn, I ALWAYS piece my borders unless I have a stripe or something that needs to run lengthwise. Some people always cut them on the lengthwise grain because the crosswise "gives" a little and they don't like that, but I've never had a problem. If your border is going to be over about 5 inches wide, I wouldn't piece it on the diagonal (always do the narrower ones that way). It will look fine.

[acornmom]

Thank you so much! I've been putting off cutting them for the last week becuase I was unsure. I feel much better about it now! I plan on 3 borders: 1 inch, then a 3 inch, and lastly a 2 inch, nothing too wide....so we'll see how it goes!!!

Thanks again!

[sewbug]

If you sew all the borders together to each other and then you will have only one big piece to add to the quilt. Much better then pushing the quilt through the machine three times around!

[Quiltcreator]

acorn, I would suggest making your last border a little wider to help balance out the fairly large quilt center. If you put a little teeny border on a big quilt, it's a question of proportion. I think, if you have enough fabric, it may look better to make the outer border at least 5 inches finished. Or if you don't want to make it any bigger, maybe just add one @ 6" or one @ 1 1/2" plus one @ 4 1/2". Just a thought.

[gardenquilter]

I always piece my borders unless it is a print that I am using for a border - I also piece them you just have to sometimes - I usually will sew them on the diagnal so the seam is not as prominent usually works well but let your fabric have the final say

[qltsbme]

I always piece my borders unless I am using a stripe print running parallel to the edge of the quilt. When you piece your border, if you don't want it to be as noticeable, sew your seams of the border on the bias. The eye doesn't catch a diagonal line as quickly as it picks up a perpendicular one.