The problem is at the corners joins if you sew them all together first, unless you are using mitred borders. Imagine it - you sew inner and outer border strips together for the top and bottom, sew them onto the quilt. Now you're probably thinking you can just sew the inner and outer border strips together and add them to the sides, right? (Yes I thought about this too at one time.) :oops: But if you were to just sew the inner and outer border strips together and add to the sides, that pesky inner border would continue all the way, top to bottom, probably not what you want, right? Theoretically you could do it if your corners are mitred though.