Wavy boarders
 

I am a newish quilter and I have noticed a few times the boarders/binding on a quilt is wavy even though the quilt is on a flat surface. What make a quilt have this wavyness? Or is it just the camera angle? Thanks.

I would bet most of the time it is the way the borders are measured. Bonnie Hunter has a border method that works great for me. Here's the link:

http://quiltville.blogspot.com/2005/...der-hints.html

I have see so many quilters hold up their unquilted quilts by the edge of the border. You can hear the fabric stretching and for sure this can cause a wavy border. When you pick up your quilt, pick it up by the seam that connects the border to the quilt body and you will not have this stretching.

Higher loft batting -- really hard, maybe impossible?, to get flat borders when using puffy batting

Stretching the bias binding when pressing before sewing, or when sewing -- it's hard NOT to. I prefer to cut my bindings on the straight grain of the fabric unless I've got a serious curve to deal with. Bias binding does make the edge more flexible, tho, and it may hold up better to heavy use over the years.

I used to have the wavy border problem. I started using Bonnie Hunter's technique and have had no problems since. It is very simple. Katier825 posted the link.

One possible problem is uneven quilting, another is longitudinal quilting. when I was new to the art, I thought it would be a great idea to finish my border with several longitudinal rows of quilting. The result was always wavy borders. I see some people who don't seem to quilt borders at all, or do it very little. Even if your measurements are right, these can cause wavy borders. I had one very wavy border to which I added a bunch more quilting. Problem solved.

The reason my borders waved when I first started quilting is because I just sewed a strip of border on to each edge; I did not measure and cut the border fabric to length before starting to sew. Now I measure the middle of the quilt, cut two borders to fit that measurement, and pin the borders on before sewing. Once two borders are on and pressed, I measure through the middle again for the last two borders.

I am struggling with a wavy border for a customer's quilt right now - the best I can tell, the reason it is so wavy is because the border is longer than the side or top/bottom of the quilt. I should've called the customer to come get the quilt and re-do the border, but we're on a VERY tight timeline to get it done. I'm praying I don't have any pleats in the quilt by the time I'm finished . . . . .

My biggest issue occurs with thin fabric cut on the crosswise grain for borders. Sometimes the pattern calls for this. Even when measuring correctly, pinning all along and sewing carefully, the borders still have waves. The crosswise grain has more stretch and some fabrics are "looser" in weave and don't hold up as well as more "thick fabric.
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