If you’ve ever made a quilt with the blocks set on point, you know that you end up with weird numbers. Weird meaning not the normal 1/4 or 1/2″ increments. When adding just one or two borders, I don’t worry so much about changing those numbers but when I’m adding 5 or 6 or sometimes more borders, weird numbers make me say bad words!
Layout #1
Above is the screenshot for Addie’s quilt layout. You can see that the size of the center of the quilt, without borders, is 50.912″ x 67.882″. Who wants to work with those kinds of numbers to make 7 borders fit? Not me!
I simply look at that center and round up or down. Never is it going to be more than 1/4″ up or down to get to a number that I’m more familiar with and there’s no way in this world that anyone can tell that I fudged up to 1/4″ on a 60″ or larger edge.
What I did on this one was round up to 51″ x 68″. That is just a tiny amount spread over those edges and with so many bias edges there, it is not going to make one bit of difference. In my EQ drawing below, you can see that I added a new quilt to the sketchbook, did a 2 x 2 block setting, divided 51 by 2 and 68 by 2 and made each block 25.5″ x 34″. This is purely make believe . . just to get the numbers closer to a workable number.
Layout #2
Now you can see that my center, without borders, is 51″ x 68″. At this point, instead of having to add quarter inch seam allowances to 50.912″, I’ll be adding quarter inch seam allowances to 51″ and all 7 borders will have workable numbers.
Just a little simple math and it makes life so much easier . . for me anyway.
This means that instead of having a quilt finish at 84.912″ x 101.882″, it’s going to finish at 85″ x 102″.
Border Chart
The next step is to make myself a little border chart. This takes about 2 minutes and except for piecing those 5″ border blocks, these straight borders will be quick to put together. I never measure my quilt top. I know that the blocks were the right size and from there, I know that the measurements in EQ are correct so if I’ll just be careful with my cutting and with my sewing, it’s all going to work out perfectly.
Carolyn Sands says
When you finish Addie’s quilt, you will have met your commitment and the ‘monkey will be off your back’!
Becky says
So great to see a quilt-related post! Thanks for sharing your wealth of knowledge with us!
Valerie says
So refreshing to hear you don’t measure your quilt for borders! I do the math on EQ (even if it’s simple enough to do in my head- always nice to have it confirmed and in front of me when I cut), and my blocks are accurrate, so I know they will fit. If things have stretched out during assembly, I want to corral them back in with the right sized border!