Originally Posted by
citruscountyquilter
I'm curious as to how you measure a the length of a border with multiple layers and still keep it from stretching. I'd like to know how others do it.
I don't measure the borders. (Well, ok, I measure to ensure I have cut it to a generous length). I lay a strip out, and carefully place the next right sides together on top, marking the middle. Starting from the middle, I gently smooth the two fabrics out, being careful not to stretch either one, and pin about every 4-6 inches. Then sew, relying on the pins to prevent uneven stretching.
When it comes to attaching borders to the quilt top, I do similar to you - find the average (or expected) length. I usually then hedge my bets, cut the border slightly longer and do as above - lay border on quilt, pin at defined intervals and ease/stretch the quilt as necessary to fit. By "defined intervals" I mean that I mark the border at each block length and use that as a guide for pinning. The border is cut slightly long for those few cases where it's just not possible to smoothly ease everything in.