I saw a program with Alex Anderson sometime back and the guest on the show said to use freezer paper, tracing paper, or the yellow quilting paper and piece it together the length of the quilt border. Draw you design out and then you will know just how it is going to fit. Make notations as you draw on the paper so you can then do the same on the quilt border. I use a #10 between needle and most often use the YLI thread.