Quilt Qua

Making a quilt is very much like creating a painting; and generally will benefit from having a frame, or border, or two. As with the quilt itself, your fabric selections will determine the look of your quilt, and are limited only by your imagination.

The easiest borders are simple strips added to the sides of your quilt. Many quilters use the same fabrics that are in their quilt blocks. Other quilters use completely different fabrics.; This adds a design dimension or introduces a new and interesting color.

A simple way to add interest to your border is to add cornerstones. These are squares in each corner that are different from the fabric used in the border. I began to appreciate cornerstones when I ran out of border fabric on a quilt. The cornerstones filled in the missing fabric.

To add a little more complexity and interest, another option is to piece one or more of your borders. This can be done in a number of different ways. One simple way is to sew rectangles together, looking like bars, perpendicular to your quilt.

Another way to piece a border is to use blocks. For example, you could add one row of simple nine patches around the outside of the quilt.

Sometimes changing the color of the blocks in your quilt makes an effective border. If the blocks in the center of your quilt are in green tones, you could use blue tones around the outside of the quilt, using the same block pattern.

Determining the Width of Your Border

As with everything, you have complete freedom of choice regarding the width of your borders. Artists have made a couple of suggestions, but they are just that (suggestions):

* If you have more than one border, vary the width of each, or at least the ones next to each other. You could have two borders the same size with a narrow strip between them, but generally it adds more interest to the quilt to have different widths of borders.

* Try to use a different width than the size of the pieces in your quilt. For example, if your quilt consists of 2” squares, using a narrower (i.e., 1” finished size) border might add some interest, and serve as a frame for the quilt top. If you have only two borders, the outside one is generally wider than the inside one. However, you could easily make a wide inner border and narrow outside border.

* Limit the size of your border width if you are using a strip of fabric without piecing or some other design feature (such as stenciling or embellishing with buttons, lace, appliqué, or an interesting quilting design).

These are all just design suggestions. Remember, it’s your quilt; do what makes you happy.