Never Too Much Cheddar Is Done!

Hello all--

Never Too Much Cheddar!

Yes, that's what I'm calling it, even though my Mother thought that it was **waaaay** too much cheddar.
However she saw the body of the quilt before I added the blue borders.  And, you know, when it comes to my Mom, she has never had a stray thought (of the opinion variety) that she did not immediately present to the world as cold, hard fact.

I did add the blue borders not only to placate her, but I wanted to balance the red and yellow by adding the third member of the color wheel to create a color harmony.  Even Mother said that she liked it better, even though she still doesn't like yellow.  I, however, have never met a color that I did not fall in love with immediately.  That's why I am a quilter and she is not.

Measuring Border Strips

HOT TIP #1

Here is a picture showing how to measure and cut your border strips so that your quilt will be perfectly squared.  Cut your border strips the length of the CENTER of the quilt, not the edges.  Just press the quilt, place on a table or floor with your border strips going down the center, pat everything nice and flat, and there you go.  You can see just exactly how long those borders need to be.  This is a tip I learned from Bonnie Hunter, Queen of Quiltville.

This brings me to HOT TIP #2:  Whenever possible, cut sashing strips and border strips on the lengthwise grain of the fabric, not crosswise.  Lengthwise grain is more stable....less stretchy.  This keeps your quilt nice and flat, not ripply.  The only time that I prefer crosscut strips is for binding.  I started doing this years ago after some trial and error of my own.

Oh, by the way, those borders have a lot of recycled men's shirts in them.  And instead of concealing the fact that they are recycled, I am FLAUNTING it, as you can see in the next picture:

Border Section Cut from Shirt Yoke with Label

 

Why not?