A Floral Explosion

I intimated very recently that borders are like cryptonite to me. I really balk or stall out on adding them, and more often than not lately, I am leaving them off all together.

So today I basically made a liar out of myself.

Here's what I did. I added not just one border but 4 borders to a little quilt I made back in September.

Geesh.

 At the retreat in Nelsonville, I used 3" squares made from an entire layer cake to make this lap quilt. At the time, I considered it finished, and was totally pleased with it. I knew it would be a small quilt, measuring 45"x53", but I didn't mind. I would use it somehow, somewhere.

Well, earlier this month, I came across two similar floral prints in my stash that had no specific project assigned to them. Hmmm...maybe I would add borders to this little quilt, after all.

Laid out here next to the quilt, I liked the way these blend together so well. I had an idea that I would do a small off-white border between them and the quilt, and I would greatly increase the size by doing so.

I have increased a 45"x53" lap quilt to a whopping 67"x75". Mercy! To be sure, I was questioning myself as I added that final blue border - golly, what a lot of measuring and cutting and pinning. But now that it's done, I am glad I did it. The quilt is so much more appealing having the framing of the borders to set off  the center.

I still have no fondness for borders, but I definitely know that some quilts are better when they have them. Instead of being so eager to be finished and move on to the next quilt, I need to to what all quilters tell us -  enjoy the process! I do. Most of the time.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Border Auditions

I am making decisions about border fabrics for the 9-patch exchange quilt I finished up at retreat. Well, the center part was finished up. I left the question of borders to be considered, and after a week of such consideration, I have decided that borders will be added.

Now, how to choose? It's a totally scrappy quilt, so what colors? Here are two choices that I boiled it down to.

Choice 1 ~ This Buttermilk Print from Thimbleberries has aged long enough in the stash, so it gets some serious consideration. However, there is just one yard, and I would have to "math it out" to see if there would be enough. Just in case it would not work, I pulled a second option.

Choice 2 ~ Another Thimbleberries, and I have plenty. I like the first choice better, so let the figuring commence. OUCH!! My brain hurts when I do that!

Choice 1 wins out. I can do a 2.5" inner border, and a 4.5" outer border. I will use leftover 9-patches in the 4 corners, and that gets me to just under the limit on available inches of fabric. Whew!

I would like to get these borders on later today. We shall see. I also have to do some Easter dinner prepping - we are going to my sister's and my contributions are green bean casserole and broccoli-cauliflower salad. Plus there's laundry and a hair appointment to work into the day, as well.

Hope you all are having a blessed Good Friday! Easter is coming!
Happy Quilting, Friends!

Border Works

This past week I took odd moments here and there to finish hand quilting the inner part of my paper-pieced UFO. All along I have had no idea how I would quilt the borders; I went to Grandma's box of templates/stencils and selected one that would incorporate two borders into one twisting design.

Then I remembered that in Grandma's stuff was this pouncer device that uses chalk dust to mark a quilt. Actually, I gave this to her ages and ages - maybe twenty years - ago. (I remember that she told me she didn't care for it too much.) Anyway, I used it to mark the border design.

On the one hand, the chalk dust is pretty messy, which is probably what Grandma disliked about it, but on the other hand, it saves so much time! I can deal with chalk dust; it's probably in my teacher DNA.

The border is prepared and I now have this quilt in a smaller frame. I will spend some of my Sunday working on it. And, since it is time for Slow Sunday Stitching, I will join the fun at Kathy's link party.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Border Wars

The possibilities for today's title are numerous.

One Inch

Ah-Ha Moment

Measuring Accurately Makes All the Difference

Can't Ignore It

Why Is This So Hard??

Get the Ripper

You may recall that I made my All In A Row quilt at the Canter's Cave retreat early in April. When I got home from retreat, I pinned the quilt top up on my design wall, and basically just admired it all  month long.

Yet as much as I admired, I also knew that something was just not right. I really had to ease those borders on, and the result was that I had a quilt that was waving at me. Yes, those borders were too big for the quilt center. Maybe you can detect it from the photo above. I tried and tried NOT to notice, to no avail. Finally, I broke down; there would be no forcing myself to ignore it. Even if I'd gone ahead and finished it, I would always kick myself for not taking those borders off and making things right.

And so I bit the bullet, and took it downstairs last night to "unsew" while watching the Cavs-Hawks game. Above is the "denuded" quilt center. It deserves this extra attention, I kept telling myself.

 Above are the borders. The black needed to be trimmed down a bit, I thought. In the month since making the quilt, I was pretty sure I hadn't forgotten that I'd had to stretch the center part to fit the borders. Yet when I measured, it appeared that I had it all backwards. I needed to add just an inch to the black outer border. So I "unsewed" one end of each border, cut small bits, shown below, and added them as extensions.

Then I reattached the corner blocks and pinned it all in place. What the ?!?!?!?! It was waaay too big! Aggghh! What on earth was I doing wrong?? Pardon my emotional use of italics and excessive punctuation, but I was becoming perturbed.


I tell you this next part to illustrate that even a seasoned veteran quilter can have issues with measuring. I added, then removed, then added again, and then removed again these extenders before finally having my "ah-ha moment." Talk about frustration! The reason those extenders shown above are so frayed and frazzled is because they'd been in, out, in and out of the border so many times. Geesh. My seam ripper was working overtime today.

The simple explanation is that when I measured, I failed to account for the small inner border. I included it when I measured; I should have excluded it. I measured numerous times and never caught my error. I ended up having to cut away an inch of the black border (instead of adding an inch) and voila! I had a perfect fit! Whew. What a dense brain I have.

Now all my borders are back on, and I am a very happy seamstress with a satisfied grin on her face. My All In A Row quilt doesn't wave any more; it will make me happy every time I look at it. After some time, maybe all I will remember about this excruciatingly difficult journey is that it was totally worth it.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

HST Borders

I spent the day sewing at Monica's yesterday - my first time there. I've sewn with Monica several other times, at other people's houses, and I've spoken of her here on the blog. I will show you her lovely quilts soon, and I will show you the various things we worked on, as well.

Today, though, it's all about me. Sorry for being so self-absorbed, but I just have to let you see the HST quilt with its borders.

Several recent comments left here have been encouraging me to finish it up without borders. While I definitely liked that idea, it would have just been too small. That would have meant making more blocks and adding on. I was just not in the mood to do more, so borders were a necessity.

I took this border project with me to work on at Monica's, never expecting it to take the biggest part of the day to complete. However, there was a significant amount of measuring and adding involved. I do struggle with numbers, you know, so it was an involved process.

I love how the dark pink stops the active center of the quilt. I did go ahead and use the leftover blocks for the outer border corner squares. I am pleased with that. The leafy outer border picks up just about every color in the center. So I am very satisfied with this quilt top.

Another finish! Yaa! I still have lots of KF scraps that I want to deal with, so I am next going to be cutting out more tumbler/crumbler blocks to stitch up. One way or another, this mess of scraps will be eliminated!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Borders For My HST Quilt

Just finished walking this morning - 5.23 miles! My longest walk yet. One of these days, I will do a post about my walking.

Today, however, I want to quickly just show you the borders I've decided on for the HST quilt. With a trip to Athens later on, I have stuff to get done. So, short and sweet today!

Originally, I'd wanted to go with a yellow-orange inner border, but when I saw this deep pink, I knew I'd love it. I think this will work out very nicely, and I might just get busy on it Monday.

Happy Quilting, Friends!