Flat It Where's It's At

Hello - I hope everyone (in the US) had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I've been bitten this week with a flu bug, but feeling a little better finally and I'm grateful for all the help I had yesterday and that it was a quiet family day.

I even manged to set the table between rests on the couch.  It is my husbands tradition to sing "We Gather Together" before dinner.  We hold hands and sing with joy, if not skill.

Coco knew something was up with the fancy placemat.  She took up a post at her food bowl to see what would happen.  She enjoyed her first Thanksgiving turkey and gravy.

My quilting goal today is to get the last three borders on the raffle quilt.  I put the first one on and attached more leaves to it on Wednesday.

One thing I have learned from helping quilt judges is that they really want to see a nice flat, square quilt.  I used to just "wing it" and have had poor results.  There are many ways to add borders.  I developed this way of doing it and really works well for me.

I work on my "big board" ironing board, but any large flat surface will work fine.  I used "Abe" as my sample.

Step 1-
Layout the quilt right side up and find the center of the quilt.  Mark it with a pin, or a dot.







Step 2-
Find the center of the border and mark it with a pin.




Step 3-
Place a pin (through the border fabric only) at the center and at each end of the quilt.




I never trim any border extra off until it is sewn and pressed and squared up.





Step 4-
Pick up the border piece and re-pin the end pins to the edge of the quilt top (ride sides together) and pin the center point.







Step 5-
At this point I flipped it over and smoothed it and pinned from the pieced side.  Pin the dickens out of it easing where necessary - never move the center or end pins.  easing, pinning, sewing and pressing will work - trust.

Step 6-
Carefully lift it all and proceed to the machine.  I sometimes use a seam ripper as a stiletto to feed the seams in the right way.



Step 7-
Press carefully.  I like a lot of steam, but do what works for you.

Step 8 (final)-
Square up the corner.  I use my small mat and square ruler for this.

One of the reasons I like this method over just measuring and cutting is that I can "see" everything that is happening.  I also leave my border length intact until all is well, then I trim it off.

So I'm off to make a cup of tea and go to work - wish me luck.  I hope if you are not shopping, that you enjoy some quilting time today.