Perfect Borders for Perfect Shaped Quilts - Every Time!

You've spent hours creating a beautiful quilt top, and now it's time to add borders. The most obvious way to measure your quilt for borders is to run a tape measure or ruler along the sides of your quilt.

That was the way I used to do it, and the result was several quilts that were misshapen. Not bad, but still not square or rectangle - kind of wavy. When the kids are using the quilts, it doesn't really matter, but when you are making a quilt to hang on a wall or on your bed, that's entirely different!

In a quilt workshop along the way, a teacher shared this secret:

The sides of a quilt tend to stretch as you sew, and often there are tiny pieces (say 1/8") of fabric that don't totally fit in. Those inconsistencies make the measurements inconsistent.

A better way is to take several measurements across the middle of the quilt top. I lay my quilt top on a flat surface and use either a tape measure or a ruler to measure several places across the quilt. (When the quilt is small enough, I use a ruler since it is more accurate.)

For the top and bottom borders, I measure from side to side across a seam line that goes all the way across the quilt. Iif your quilt has sashing, measure along a seam line where the sashing is attached to blocks.

Measure your quilt top along a seam line from side to side and from top to bottom for borders that will make your quilt the perfect shape.

If there is no sashing, pick a line where a row of blocks meets the next row of blocks.

The idea is to measure along a line where the fabric is less likely to stretch.

Pick several places - I measure at least 3 places in the middle of the quilt.

Then take a kind of average - using your judgment. As you measure, you may see that there are some places that can be trimmed away from the quilt top and will make your quilt a more consistent shape.

In addition to measuring your borders correctly, there is a trick to adding the borders to ensure that they are placed right along the sides of your quilt top.

Happy Quilting!

Penny is a quilter of more than 24 years who seeks to interest new quilters and provide them with the resources necessary to create beautiful quilts.

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