Filler strip too small!

[Melanie A.]

I am finally finished with the borders and am ready to put them on. Unfortunately, when I measure the border and the quilt, there is only room for a 1/4 inch filler strip. Just don't know that it will look right. Is there any way to make the filler strip larger within the constraints of the size of the outside borders? I believe my borders ended up too small when I took a larger than 1/4 inch seam allowance to make the triangles meet correctly. Thanks for suggestions!

[Barbara B.]

My smallest floater border is 1/2" finished and that looks and works fine. A 1/4" floater will work, but it is hard to make those small borders look even all the way down.

You can increase the length of your Delectable Mountain borders by 1/2" to provide the extra you need to allow for 1/2" floater borders--you need 1/4" MORE on both sides. That is really very small adjustments across all the seams of the DM blocks. I would look carefully at the DM block seams, see which appear to be the widest, and narrow 2-3 of those up on one border to see if that gets you the extra length on those borders you need. If it does, and your triangles don't appear to be off more than you can stand, fix the remaining 3 DM borders so you can proceed with the 1/2" floaters between the DM borders and the center of the quilt.

I hope this helps.

[Marion D.]

You can lay the quilt top out on a bed (easier than a design wall, in my opinion) and audtition a 1/4 inch strip and see what you think. If you like the 1/4 inch strip, then go ahead and sew the 1/2 inch (or more, if you are not comfortable with that) filler strip on. then, when you add the borders, use that seam line as a 1/4 inch guide, not the edge of the fabric like you usually do. This will make the 1/4 inch seem straighter.

I did this a couple of times on the 2010 BOM, and liked what I saw. It is in my photos, the one with me standing next to it.

[Barbara B.]

Marion is exactly correct about sewing in a 1/4" border. It's hard to explain, but, as she says, you are using the edge of your quarter inch foot to guide along the seam you just sewed, when you first sewed in the edge of that narrow floater onto the edge of the quilt center. If you line up with the raw edge of the border, like usual, I find my little border is crooked, and it's noticeable.

[Melanie A.]

Thanks so much for the great suggestions. I actually thought that reducing the sdam size was the only solution to making the filler larger and was happy to hear that I was right about that! Again, thanks for taking the time to give great advice!