Thanks for the sewing lesson! Wish I would have asked first.

Have you seen jennie rayment's fiddling.? Make a( shape and roll edge same place in every edge and make it look like a desig.

The reason this works:

When you measure the at edge of the quilt, there will ALWAYS be a bit of stretching, sometimes more than at other times, depending on the grain of fabric. Measuring through the center of the quilt works because the quilt is more stable here than at the edges. When you just sew a long strip onto the edge of the quilt without measuring, both the edge of the quilt AND the border stretch, causing a noticable "ripple" effect.

Therefore, when you cut a border strip the measurement you take through the center of the quilt, the border will be the same length as the quilt itself. Usually, you will have to do a minimal amount of easing of the quilt edge to the border. I always put the border strip on top of the quilt as I'm sewing the two together. The feed dogs will assist the easing process.

Same here. I don't mess around with measuring 3 places and take the average. The center will give you the "true" measurement and using that will assue you a nice square quilt top for quilting.

AND remember--done is always better than perfect! 8^) you could also stitch a line of running stitches down the outside of the border and draw it up/in, evenly distributing the waves so that it lies flat.

Welcome to the been there done that club!!! It is the best way to learn.

I measure the center of the quilt to get my measurement and then i PIN it to make sure that it all gets eased in if necessary.

I would also take the border off, measure across the center and resew. It will be a little tedious because you have to keep the batting and backing out of the way but I think it will be worth it.

actually I would take off the borders and this time measure first it will be more satisfactory to you and would probably take less time than trying to make it look good