Borders

[Renata L.]

Greetings good people!

I am in the process of making my first, very simple, quilt. I have planned it to be reversible for versatility. It's a single bed size.
The main fabric is a linen/cotton luscious floral fabric and the backing is a toning striped floral fabric. The pattern I began with did not say to allow 4+ inches all round for the backing fabric., so my cut backing is the same size as the front. Will this be a problem?

Being me, I decided - after I'd cut both fabrics the same size as the original pattern instructed, to add a contrast of 2 contrast borders to frame the quilt, plus a binding strip. My question now is:
In what order do you recommend I proceed? My thinking is:
1. cut the border strips on the straight of grain. 2 in number - 1½" plain border strip
2½ floral border strip

1" binding strip
Machine 2 strips together, but double them for both front and back. Starting with right sides together on main fabric with mitred corners, then turning the doubled borders over so it could then be stitched on the back. I would then finish with a narrow binding strip in the same colour as the first plain border strip. Or should I do the borders separately?
My question is: should I sandwich the quilt, after securing/stabilising the batting with checkerrboard machine stitching, squaring the quilt, trimming if necessary and closing raw edges with a 1cm seam. Or, would it make sense to add the borders before or after the quilt is sandwiched?

Hope this doesn't sound like gobbledegook!

With thanks for any suggestions/corrections.

BizzieB

[Renata L.]

My first full sized quilt I made I a) made it reversible/ two fronts, and b) made both sides the same size. It is possible to do it this way, but you have to particular attention to lining up the edges when pinning the layers together. Having the backing larger than the front, allows for wriggle room, should things move.

If you are planning on adding borders and you haven't layered it up into its sandwich yet, I would suggest that you piece on the borders to the panels as you plan, (if you make the outer border of the 'back' panel a bit larger, it will give you the wriggle room that can be useful. Personally I only make it a couple of inches all round rather than 4", which is necessary for long armers). Then layer and quilt as you wish.

Then bind it. For the binding, I am concerned that you are planning on cutting such a narrow strip, or is it that you want the binding strip that when finished measures 1"? Getting a bit lost on your planned description of the binding. I am sure that there are classes on the site about how to do bindings, and that they have been mentioned on some of the shows of how to do them as well. _{just going to have a look to see what I can find for you....}

[Renata L.]

https://thequiltshow.com/learn/search-classrooms

If you go here and type 'binding' in the search box it throws up lots of classes to help you.

[Renata L.]

Rosemary, thanks so much for your detailed response. I like the idea of making the back layer border wider to allow the wiggle room I lack.

I thought I would attach the borders separately and use the binding to enclose the raw edges to complete the quilt. I will calculate the fabric to include a 1-1.5cm seam allowance so that the binding measures 1" when stitched, to just give the proportional finish I'm after, and will certainly visit The Quilt Forum for instructional content.

Once the borders are attached (and adjusted if required), I can then make my sandwich, leaving the binding to the end. I plan to machine stitch a chequerboard across the quilt in order to stabilise the batting. Though I love the long-arm free hand designs I'm not yet confident enough to attempt anything more complex at this stage!

Once more,many thanks; I was a bit stuck as to how to proceed.

BizzieB

[Renata L.]

By the way, it is usually best to keep to one type of measurements, either metric or imperial, rather than mixing them, because they don't accurately translate from one to another, and it can be easy to get muddled as to which one you are using at any given moment, and you don't want to cut cm when you meant inches!

Hope you come back with a picture of it when done, we always enjoy seeing other people's work.