Wavy Borders

An article by Rachel    1 Comment

Wavy quilt borders are easy produce. Nice straight borders not so easy. For the most part, my borders are nice and straight. What’s the secret to my success? Lots of measuring and taking my time. Just when I was starting to feel confident and perhaps a little prideful, life decide to humble me. The last couple of quilts that I made had wavy borders. While they weren’t really wavy, they still annoyed me. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong. My method didn’t change.

Then one night I was fighting with my iron. While it was hot enough to burn me (I have the scar to prove it), it wasn’t ironing my fabric flat. What was up? Then I had a light bulb moment. I realized that I was so frustrated that I was ironing not pressing my fabric. My fabric was all stretched out. Ugh!

Solution? Buy a new iron. I’m now the proud owner of an Oslio iron. So far I’m happy.

I still have one quilt, Baby Quilt #2, that has a stretched out border. What could I do to fix it? Then it occurred to me that I could block it just like knitters do. Last night while watching lost I pinned the quilt to the carpet. Then I liberally sprayed starch on it and pressed it. Results?

One crisp and straight quilt. I think the starch will help with the quilting process. Before I give the quilt away, I’ll throw it in the wash. Now on to quilting. I pin basted it together. Hopefully by the end of the week it will be DONE.

By the way, I’m trying to get good photos of the two quilts that I finished in January. I thought that this weekend would be my opportunity. No such luck. It’s forecast with lots of rain. Maybe later today.