Friday, February 15, 2019

How to add borders when you don't have a helper

Have you ever struggled to add borders to a quilt because it's too big?




My family grumbles and rolls their eyes when I ask for them to hold a quilt top and border taught so I can pin it. I've figured out a way to do it now without their help. I still make them do it every now and then, especially on the big, big quilts, just so they know I still need them. ;)

If you are new to quilting you might find THIS POST: Adding Borders helpful for cutting your borders.

I use my rug for this trick, but you could use your bed if you don't have rugs or don't want to have to get up and down from the floor.




First lay your quilt top flat on the floor. Smooth it out so there aren't any wrinkles or bubbles along the end that you are adding the border to.




Pin each corner to the padding in your rug, then put a pin in the middle to hold it all in place.




Lay your border down on top of your quilt, right sides together. Smooth it out so it is end to end. Pin the border corners to the quilt top corners.




Put a pin in the middle and then a pin half way from the middle and each corner.




Unpin the corners and middle pins from the rug. I find that sewing with the border strip on the bottom is the best way to make sure it is sewn evenly to the quilt top.

I hope you found this quick walk through helpful. If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments.




The quilt shown is Arrowhead from Teresa Mairal's new book Turnabout Patchwork. You can see the blog post I wrote about it HERE.

Happy Stitching!
Jen

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