ptquilts

I was taught (somewhere, can't remember) to measure the border fabric down the middle of the quilt. Eliminates waviness. If you have to do any tucking, it will be the quilt top and not the border. I would never just sew fabric to the edge of the top without measuring, that is asking for trouble.

Stitchnripper

I do something similar. I don’t measure with a ruler. I spread out the quilt and lay the two strips for the border over the middle smoothing It all out as much as possible and cut. So far it has worked out well for me.

heronlady

Thanks for the mention of sewing with the border on the bottom. I often do this to make it easy to make sure seam allowances in blocks remain the direction they were pressed. And, my borders would not be absolutely flat, in spite of diligent measuring. I always wondered why. I will try sewing them with the border on top. Thanks again—don’t think I would have ever figured that into the equation.

ladyinpurple135

Never!!! No darts. I agree with several of the other people on this list - if you measure correctly it should be wavy, if it ends up wavy, take it off and redo the measurements. Also, I agree with making charity quilts too fast. Your work should always be as good as you can do. If this was a professional quilter, she should have told the person who brought it about the problem, and then told her it needed to be fixed properly by whomever. Sloppy just doesn’t cut it with me - I’m nowhere near perfect but I do the best I can and redo something if it looks really crappy - like wavy borders.

Sandy in Mooresville, NC

Onebyone

The LA I sometime use for my larger quilts say my borders are always flat and even. I don't measure them, I sew and cut off to fit. I cut crossgrain not lengthwise. If I have a floppy border I use the tuck the excess under the seam as I posted earlier. I don't know who or when someone decided the border had to be measured made to fit the measurement through the middle of the quilt. I'm sure it works on paper and be manipulated to fit to be exact but I don't have the patience to mess with all that when it's not necessary.

quiltingshorttimer

I LA for others and have a couple of repeat clients that I don't even thing about cause they are so exact on their borders and quilts so very square. then I have a couple of others that are the exact opposite! Before I load I fold the quilt in 4ths--it's a quick way to check if the quilt is square. If not I'll load the wide end at the top--it's easier to quilt it that way without wavy borders being a problem, but it might look like it's lost "girth" at the bottom!. Sometimes there are problems with a border on a side and also on the bottom. I hate having to make pleats/darts on borders--I find that often the problem goes up into the quilt blocks also. If I do need to sew in a pleat I'll ladder stitch it closed. Most of the time I can soak the wavy area with spray starch, let it almost dry and then put a hot iron on it (I do this on the frame) to "shrink" it enough to quilt. You can get up to about 3" of excess out this way. the worse I've had was a border on an on-point medallion quilt--the quilt center was not square and borders on 2 sides were more than 5" off--I ended up taking all the quilting off (this was someone that I'd never had problems with their quilts before)and then taking borders off and recutting/sewing and then requilting with "piano keys" --the saving border design! Those of you that send quilts to LA and don't border to square a quilt or tame wavy borders--often an unquilted top laid on a bed or the floor looks pretty square but once on the frame can be very off--and you also may be paying a higher price cause your quilter knows your quilts have squaring issues typically and take more time.

Snooze2978

Yes, and can't understand why it became wavy but it did. Didn't realize it till I got to the bottom border so the draw-in must have been massive. Anyway, came up with the idea of adding a pleat, actually a couple pleats as the wave was that bad. I made the pleat right where my pattern would come down to almost hide it. I was using a piano key pattern. Afterwards I had trouble finding the problem spot so guess I did good. No one will ever know but you and me. The recipent was so happy to get a quilt as a gift.

juliasb

I can't say that I have darted a curve. I went to the Web Site and saw what was being done and think this is a good way to correct things but am more likely to take things apart. In all my years of quilting I have only had one slight problem with a quilt and I took it out and fixed the problem.

Onebyone

I have made pleated borders, not ruffled, before and they are stress free and look great. They are easier to do with curved corners then mitered square corners.