I have just finished the main part of a bargello wall hanging. The final border is suppose to be mitered. It has a 4 inch wide border. I am using a wide striped material.. the stripe repeats about every 6 inches. I am not sure that I can make my strips match in the miter.... would I be better off doing a square in the corner of another fabric... All suggestions appreciated. Quilter 1234

hi quilter, it would help if you could post a picture. miter is always nice. but a corner block is a good touch also.
not much help am i?? 8)

you could do a square, log cabin, chevron, pinwheel, or any variation. Even a solid color corner block could work, especially with a quilted center. Can you show us yout top and propsed borders?

it's true ... your quilt can look every bit as good without a mitred border. i know somebody ... (she lives in my house, eats, my food, then leaves her mess for me to clean up!) ... who almost never mitres. she usually tries but ends up most of the time with some fairly bizarre and unattractive results and switches back to an easier method.

here's my question, though. which would make you happier? to make a border that will surely be lovely, but not what you planned or wanted, OR to conquer your fear and mitre those stripes? will you be able to love your finished quilt without the mitres, or will the lack of them haunt you? (i only ask because my friend still kicks herself around about it just a bit more than the whole issue is worth. :lol: )

if you decide to go for it, keep in mind that the "trick" to mitring those stripes will be making sure they line up perfectly between the two strips you are going to mitre. the strips you start with must look exactly alike.

don't risk one of the "fold it back at the corners" methods. use a pieced method. i'll try to describe one way that works. (1) sew the first border strip to the top, starting and stopping 1/4" from the ends. (2) lay the next strip, face down, on top of the 1st. flip back the top to form the 45 degree angle and carefully adjust its position until the stripes are lined up exactly. press the fold, then - without moving the strips - lay it flat again and baste the two strips together along the fold using the smallest running stitch you can make. after basting, flip it back to make sure it's all still lined up. if it is, you can safely trim away the excess, leaving the traditional 1/4" seam allowance, then continue around the quilt, machine stitching the borders to the top, but hand stitching the mitre lines at the corners. once it's done, you can either machine stitch over the basted lines or press it all into place and topstitch the mitres to embellish and reinforce the corners.

there are other ways, too. i'm sure you'll get lots of suggestions today to choose from. pick the one that will make you happiest when you gaze upon your completed quilt. :P

if you really want the mitred corner look, i say go for it! this was my first time mitreing (sp?) and i was very happy with it. the first three corners came out exactly perfect the first time. the fourth one took me a couple of tries (go figure!), but it came out perfect, too. i used the masking tape method.

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e3...christmas4.jpg

it's out of the Mimi Dietrich Happy Endings book. basically what you do is lay out the corner (with one of the borders folded under at a 45° angle to make your mitre) and put masking tape over it. then you fold it in half on the angle (masking tape to the inside), mark the crease and stitch, being careful not to stitch over the masking tape.

probably clear as mud, but the best i can do without infringing on any copyrights :-o

i'll see if it's somewhere on the internet to post.

here's her method on the google book review site!

http://books.google.com/books?id=MQn...xZyiwhg2nRcgC4

You can baste it with the longest stitch on your sewing machine first, to make sure it's just right, and then shorten the stitch length and sew it up when you are happy with it! Corners look very nice when they are mitered with stripes.

I've only done it once in my very limited time as a quilter, but the advice Patrice gave about hand stitching the mitered corners is what I did and it came out just fine. I did tear out one a couple time to get it right, but for me that’s turning out par.

I purchased a 15" omnigrid and you just lay that on top of your material to know where to cut. I like to miter but it can be difficult and this graid rall helps. Lood for one at your material shop and see if you think it could help you.

that is awesome!!