stephaniequeen

I have heard that to measure out your border you need to measure from the middle of the quilt to get the right length. But what happens after measuring, the length is shorter than the quilt top...how do you get the shorter border to fit??

sueisallaboutquilts

Hi Stephanie,
Are you taking into account the measurements on one side so that you add it to the other half??
Ex. long sides first, then short sides adding in the length.
Does this make sense??

kathy

actually you should measure both sides and the middle, add the 3 numbers and divide by 3, this gives you the average measurement, you may have to squnch or stretch just a dab but then they will be the same

lbaillie

depends on how short you are, stretch and ease, If my border piece is to short try putting it on top, in other words let the feed dog pull in the main quilt, it seem to pull thru faster than the top.

PaperPrincess

You need to ease the larger piece into the smaller one:
Pin the 2 ends.
Find the middle of the border & the quilt and pin those 2 together.
You now have 3 pins, dividing the quilt into 2 sections.
Find the center of the quilt and the border in each of the 2 sections and pin that together. Continue finding the centers of the border & quilt top in each unpinned section, and pin them together until all the fullness is absorbed. May take a lot of pins, but you will get there!

Grama Lehr

Nope!!! :shock:

bigsister63

the inside measurement (s) should be almost the same as the edge. If they are very much shorter than the edge then you are stretching the edge too much for some reason. If tthe inside measurement is shorter then you need to "squeeze" the edges into the border measurement as has been suggested. Also be sure that the respective borders are sewn on before you do measurement. Do not just do math.

pipp5

?????????????

Prism99

What she said!!! If there's a *lot* of extra fullness, I will even run basting stitches along the edge to help ease the longer piece to the shorter one. (Also agree with averaging 3 measurements.)

:P

alikat110

Wow! Thanks for this post. I forgot about averaging measurements. Now I know why my borders are always off. Thanks for the info everyone!!!!