One Piece at a Time

Pattern anyone?

How many fabrics can I use in one quilt. Quite a few it turns out!

Pattern anyone?

Border Design: First Steps

Here is a little tutorial on designing applique borders... basically all the things I've learned so far.

Step 1: Miter your borders. If you really hate mitered borders you can join them the usual way but I've found this makes lining things up easier. And, YES, I attach my borders before I applique them. I'm sure some people would disagree with this but since my borders are very symmetric I find this is way easier than trimming them and attaching them later.

Step 2: Find the natural division in your design. Since my layout is 3 blocks x 3 blocks I divided my border design into thirds.

Step 3: Don't finalize your design until you have it in fabric! The above picture has my first design which was only on paper. Once I started making the applique shapes and placing them things looked a little empty. 

Ahhh! Much better.

Step 4: Once you feel like your design is working, complete one side to check it. Everything looks ok here.

Step 5: Work in units. There are 2 units in this design, a corner unit and a side unit. I'm stitching them one unit at a time to make things easier.