Border lessons?

[BellsRUs]

Hi -

I have taken several EQ classes on Quilt University and know EQ5-7 fairly well. However, I always seem to have difficulty getting my borders to look like I want them to. Are there any lessons on making borders anywhere? Sometimes I'm creating a quilt/borders from scratch, sometimes I'm just trying to copy a quilt into EQ so that I can play with the colors, but the borders always seem to be where I get stuck (when it isn't a straightforward border).

Any advice, tips, lessons, etc. would be greatly appreciated...

Thanks!
Patti

[BarbVlack]

Patti, I teach classes about creating borders for quilts, but I don't teach at Quilt University. My classes are "brick-and-mortar" classes. I can offer a couple of tips for designing borders.

You don't say what kind of border you want to create -- pieced, appliqued, whole cloth? Do you worry about the width of the border, what style to choose, or how to turn the corner? What is the style of the quilt -- pieced, appliqued, traditional, non-traditional, etc.?

Have you worked at all with the Set Auto Borders tool? There is a variety of border styles offered with that tool. See page 120 of the User Manual for information about this tool. What I find especially helpful with this tool is not only its offering for the border blocks for the sides of the quilt but also the blocks for turning the corners.

For the width of the border, I suggest, for your audition, taking half the size of the (square) block used in the center of the quilt and adding one inch. There is a mathematical formula for this that I won't detail here, but I have found that the half-size-plus-one-inch is a good ballpark measurement that is very aesthetically pleasing for a border width. That's if you want the width of the border to be LESS than the size of the block. If you want the border to be wider than the block size, ADD the block size plus one half the block size plus one inch to get an attractive border width. Your choice depends on what looks good to you.

There is a lot more I could go into if you want multiple borders for your quilt. Sizing of the width of the borders is very important.

I hope this helps to get you started with some confidence.

Barb

[BellsRUs]

Thanks for the tips, Barb - they will come in very handy!