Tutorial for Mitered Borders

I presented a tutorial on making Mitered Borders at our Foothills Guild Meeting this month.  Here is the hand-out I prepared.  Try these steps - they will make your mitered borders easy and come out looking so nice.  The "Formula Chart" for mitered borders at the end is a helpful way to remember the calculations you need.   This is a free tutorial that may be copied, used, and shared.  I'd appreciate you acknowledging that you found it on my blog if you share it.

Mitered Borders

By Linda Puttmann ( http://sewmanyjoyousthings.blogspot.com/ )

Here's the block we'll miter

Step 1:  Borders.  Determine the overall width your borders will be to achieve the look you want for your quilt.  Determine how many borders you’d like on your quilt and determine the width of the strips needed to achieve the look you want.

Step 2:  Determining the length of border strips.  Measure the length of the quilt (notate that measurement and half that size on a piece of paper).  Calculate the length of the strips for each of the 2 lengthwise border sets by adding the measurement of the length of the quilt above, plus the width of the border twice, plus about 3” (notate those totals on your paper, see Formula Chart, below).  Do the same for the width of the quilt.  Why use this formula?  When sewing the border strips on for a mitered border, you must take into account that there is a border on both sides, and you must also add extra length for the miter. 

Step 3:  Cutting and sewing border strips together.  Once you’ve determined how long your border strips need to be, you can cut your strips (2 sets for the length of the quilt and 2 sets for the width of the quilt).  If using more than one border, strip piece the borders together. They are then treated like one piece of fabric when joining them to the quilt.

Step 4:  Determining placement of the borders.  Fold the border sets in half and mark the centers of all 4 borders.  Fold the quilt in half and mark the centers of all 4 sides.

 

Shows center mark(Step 4) and marks at one side (Step 5)

Step 5:  Marking border sets.  Using the half calculation from step 1, measure and mark the size of the quilt on the 2 lengthwise border sets by measuring out from the center, and placing a mark to designate where the edge of the quilt should be.  Also mark ¼” in from each edge.  With right sides facing, and raw edges aligned, match the centers and pin.  Then match the ¼” marks and pin.  Please Note:  The strip sets will extend beyond quilt edges - do not trim the border strip sets.  Do the same for the border sets for the width of the quilt.  (I combine Steps 5 & 6, pinning & sewing, when doing each side and then proceed to the next side and pin & sew.)

 

 

Shows placement with edge of block at the 1/4" mark (Step 5)

Step 6:  Sewing border sets.  Sew lengthwise border strip sets to quilt edge, starting and stopping ¼” from the corner of the quilt, and backstitching at each end.  Do the same with the border sets for the width of the quilt (holding back the lengthwise pieces so they don’t catch in your new seams).  You now have all 4 sides sewn to the quilt, that stop ¼” from each edge, and with strip sets extending beyond the edges on all 4 sides.  Do not trim the border sets.

  Strip sets extend beyond block - don't trim (Step 6)

Step 7:  Pressing.  Press strips making up the lengthwise border sets toward the quilt, press strips making up the border sets along the width away from the quilt.  The border sets will now nestle nicely when you miter them.  I recommend that you don’t press the border seam where it attaches to the quilt at this time.

Step 8:  The mitering process.  Method A:  Lay the corner to be mitered on your ironing board.  With the right side up, fold the border strip back at a 45-degree angle and align raw edges of the adjacent sides.  Work with the fold until the seams meet properly.  When you think you’ve got it, you can use a square ruler to check that the corner is square and flat. 

Miter is folded and pressed (Step 8)

Press a crisp line where the fabric is folded back (you can then mark on the line with a pencil if it will help you to see it better). 

Pin it well to hold it together, then carry it to your sewing machine, and sew on the crisp line beginning at the outer, raw edge, and sewing into the inner corner until you are within about 2 stitches out from the juncture, and secure seam with a backstitch.  Optionally, it’s also okay to sew from the inner juncture toward the outer edge if you prefer and if your sewing machine has good clearance and visibility to start at that juncture.

Unfold and make sure the border lies flat.  Correct stitching, if necessary.  Trim seam allowance to ¼” and press seam open.  Miter remaining corners.

Two borders mitered

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Method B:  This method works for small wall-hangings or for individual blocks.  Follow the preliminary steps above.  To miter (instead of using Step 8) with right sides together, fold the quilt or block diagonally at a 45 degree angle.  Use the 45° angle line, marked on your ruler, to pencil a 45° stitching line from the corner of the quilt to the raw edge of the border, and sew on that line.  Check for accuracy, trim, and press.

Method B - this option seems to work okay for small wallhangings or individual blocks

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Formula Chart for Mitered Borders
by Linda Puttmann  ( http://sewmanyjoyousthings.blogspot.com/ )

Length of quilt _____, ½ length _____

Width of quilt _____, ½ width _____

Length of quilt _____, + border set width _____, + border set width again _____, +3” = _______

(Cut the 2 lengthwise border sets this size.)

Width of quilt _____, + border set width _____, + border set width again _____, + 3” = _______

(Cut the 2 widthwise border sets this size.)

"Drawing" Faces Tutorial

I'll try as best I can to expain how to put a face on your applique lady (in this case the Civil War Bride Quilt - Bride Block).  If you can't freehand draw, like me, do a search at:   Google, Images, and type in free coloring pages faces or something similar.  Then find a line drawing of a face that appeals to you (such as on freecoloringpages4you.worldpress.com).  Under most of the images during your search you'll see the phrase "find similar images".  That can also bring up some good results.

Print out the face you have chosen.  If it's not the size that you need, you may have to reduce or enlarge it.

Then take skin colored fabric (I used the reverse side of some peach colored fabric I had in my stash - beige fabric would also have been a good candidate for the way I wanted my Bride to look) and iron freezer paper to the reverse side.

Put your chosen face on a lightbox.  Put your fabric with the freezer paper on the back on top and secure both pieces down to your lightbox with painters tape or similar so they won't slip around.

Now draw the face lightly with a mechanical pencil.  Check your work, and if you're not happy with it, do a little bit of light erasing, and try again.  If you're happy with it, go over the pencil lines with a brown or black Micron pen (use one that has a fairly fine point such as an 01).

Now take some colored pencils (the inexpensive Crayola brand are fine or whatever you have) and give her color to her lips, cheeks, and hair.  A good rule of thumb is to use 3 different colors on her hair including a yellow to show as hightlights so it won't look flat. 

Her eye needs 3 colors, the white part of the eye you'll just leave your plain fabric, then you'll have a colored part, and a black center.  To make her come to life she needs a little sparkle to her eyes. To do that, take a toothpick and dip the end into some white acrylic paint. Put just a dot on the black part of her eye.

I then took a peachy colored or ochre colored pencil and add some shading to her face.  It would be all around the outside of the face, under the chin, etc.  If you're at a loss, look in the mirror and see where the shadows show up on your face and put the same ones on your drawing.

When you're happy with the results, cut out your drawing, leaving your turn-under allowance all around the outside edge.  Applique her down and you're finished.

This is a technique I learned in a class from ArleneS at the Quilted Apple in Phoenix, AZ.

Organizing my Stash

I finally heard of an idea that looks like it's going to work for folding my stash.  I have about 12" deep shelves where I keep my fabric.  The other ideas I've heard just didn't sound like they'd work as well for my narrow shelves.  This method makes each fabric piece about 12" deep and narrow enough to fit 5 stacks of fabric per shelf.  I thought this idea might be helpful to others who may be struggling to organize their stash and also have narrow shelves like I do.  Here's a picture of the shelf of fabric I folded this morning. 

Can you see the pretty organized shelf amidst the shelves of chaos?

I've decided to make it a priority to work on organizing my stash for a few minutes each day (week days).  My husband still works so while he's getting ready in the morning and I'm still getting awake, I don't want do anything too challenging anyway.  Since this is so easy, I thought I'd do the folding.  When he leaves for work, it'll be my signal that I can stop and go back to other projects I want to work on.  I figure it won't feel so overwhelming this way.  It will get done bit by bit and before I know it, my whole stash will be organized.  I've put a tutorial below of the fabric folding technique I'm using.

Fabric Folding Tutorial

Here’s a way to organize your stash by using a fabric folding technique.  It looks neat, is easier to see what you have, takes up less room, and the real bonus is that as you unroll your fabric it’s set-up ready to cut.

Here are the steps:

Fold fabric in half selvedge to selvedge.

Fold in half again in the same direction by bringing the selvedges up to almost meet the main fold (this is how it is folded coming off the bolt at a quilt shop). 

With the main fold at the top and selvedge nearly up to meet it, you lay a paper lunch sack on the right edge and start folding your fabric toward the left.

           

When you're finished, you have a neat package and it's oriented in such a way that you can unfold it a little, and it’s ready to cut.  The edge you need to start the cut is what unrolls first. 

Remove the paper sack.

A paper sack measures 5" x 10 3/4".  You want to make a cardboard template to use instead - or you may wish to use a 4 ½” ruler to get a similar effect.