117becca

You quilt the quilt and THEN add the borders???? I can't imagine that working?????

thepolyparrot

It works beautifully - like I said, it's a little extra work, so if it's a small quilt, I wouldn't bother. But I seem to have forgotten how to make anything less than super-king size, lately, so it's really come in handy.

I serge around the edges of the center part of the quilt, measure through the center and apply backing of that length to the sides. Then I measure crossways through the center and apply backing strips of that measurement to the top and bottom. Then I apply the topside borders - the next one I'm doing, I think I'm going to be making mitered corners - that's going to be the challenge for me. After the backing and borders are on, I apply the batt inside - this is one of the places I especially love fusible batts.

nanOmint

There was a tute a day or two ago, 'Six hour quilt'. I have made several 6 hr quilts how ever I didn't know what they were called. I could see adding the borders on in this manner. I just may try it.

DebbieG

I have never had this happen but have seen someone that it did happen to....Her LAQ never contacted her to tell her there was a problem. I would have been furious if that happened to me!!! The LAQ should have called her and told her there was a problem, NOT just went ahead and done it. The person took out all the stitching and had it hand quilted by someone .....no problems. That all being said squaring up your quilt appropriately alleviates those problems. Since I've learned to do that correctly my quilts look so much better. I shudder when I look back on some of my first quilts......that's learning!!

feline fanatic

An LAQ can get an inkling of a problem before the quilt goes on the rack by measuring every side of the quilt. If one side of the quilt measures more than the other side and the variance is more than 1/2" you are going to have a problem and possibly a pleat or several will be needed. I have had to do this on a few quilts but I did let my client know and one of them the entire border was pieced HST so I was able to camoflauge the pleats in the seams of the HST. The other there was nothing I could do, short of taking off the borders and redoing them and the client declined that. She just told me to do what I could. The quilt was received, loved and is being used by her DD.

It is also possible your LA may have stretched the quilt by having it too taut on the rack, when she said she didn't see the problem until the very end of the quilt, I am thinking this may be the more likely scenario. It is not the end of the world though. I agree she should have called you but what is done is done. 9 times out of 10 once the quilt is bound and washed that pleat or fold will be hardly noticible if at all. Were you planning on entering this quilt in a show? If so that should also have been communicated to the LAQ.

Auj

I went to pick up a quilt from a LA and she was so frustrated with a quilt that was already on the frame and more than half quilted. The borders were wavy and she had not noticed it until that point. She had stretched the top as much as possible. It happened to be a quilt of a friend of mine on it. The LA said that my friend always had some problem each time she brought a quilt to be quilted. I suggested she call my friend and let her know the problem. Have her come to the shop to actually see WHAT the problem was and WHY she needs to be more careful piecing the borders. The quilter said that she DID call my friend and friend was at the hairdressers and did not want to be bothered and refused to talk. I was surprised at that, but suggested that the quilter discuss how to put borders on and let 'friend' know that if in future a quilt was brought in that was not square, 'friend' would be charged extra to fix the problem or for the difficulty of working with it on the frame.

Did I mention that the quilt was a rush job? Quilter expected the quilt to take about 4 hours and had already wrestled with it for nearly 7 hours.

Corky

Something I do that I think is important, too, is to try to cut the border fabric on the lengthwise grain (the one that doesn't stretch). This really helps (along with doing the measuring through the center as already mentioned). Of course sometimes your border is pieced or directional, but if possible I cut it on the non stretch grain.

Every little tip seems to help.

dorrell ann

I have slip stitched a border before and it turned out ok -you might put an applique over the folds.

MimiBug123

I always wait until my quilt is quilted before putting my borders on. They go on perfectly and lie flat every time. I can't imagine doing it any other way. Isn't it funny how we are all doing the same thing so differently?

feline fanatic

Huh?? Are you confusing borders with binding??