Borders! A Life of Plenty Quilt ready to quilt!

(Click on the photo, to see the entire quilt!)

Good morning! I completed the borders, and have a free foundation piecing template for the corner blocks on my website for you!

For the inner border, I cut four strips 1 1/2" wide x the width of the fabric, from a navy blue check brushed homespun fabric. I sewed the sides on first, pressed toward the strips and trimmed the excess off. Then I sewed the top and bottom strips on, and pressed and trimmed.

For the outer border strips, I cut from two different brushed homespuns, two 5 1/2" strips x the width of the fabric. I sewed the sides on first, pressed toward the strips and trimmed the excess off. Next I measured the distance between the seams of the two side border strips at the top and the bottom, added 1/2" to the measurements, and cut the top and bottom strips to those measurements, hopefully the measurements are the same! Mine were off 1/8", so I decided not to worry about that. Sew the corner blocks to the ends of each strip, press toward the strips, and then sew top and bottom borders onto the quilt, matching up the seams.

Now, to make that backing and get to quilting! I hope you will share your finished quilt photos with me! Since the front has so much going on, I can't decide if I'll piece my back or buy a large piece for the back.....maybe I'll decide today. What will you do?

Oh! For the paper piecing, to make it easy, I cut four navy prints 3" square for the centers. That way I had a uniform seam allowance on all four sides, which made it easier to line up the next four triangles around it. For the first row of triangles, I cut two 4" squares of a gold stripe, and cut them in half diagonally, per block. This way, I could align the long edge of these triangles up with the edge of the center square, flip it all over and sew on the line, knowing it would fit perfectly once pressed back. The second row of triangles were made by cutting two 4" squares of a red plaid, and cutting them in half diagonally, per block. To help line up, I laid the fabric down so the edge I was sewing would touch the point of the previous seam, and then just move it above the seam by 1/4". This way, there is plenty room to press back after sewing the seam. It worked out nicely this way, and there was minimal waste!

I hope you enjoy making the borders, and I left you lots of room, in case you want to use some of the block templates to put applique in your borders! I think that would look so pretty! Please share if you do this, I would love to see!

Have a wonderful day!

Jeni

 

Posted with Blogsy