LAF2019

I am working on a mystery quilt project that a guild member created. She gave the reveal a few weeks ago and I am almost finished.

The first picture shows the quilt center and the border (border is still in chunks and not yet fully pieced together and there is just one more seam to be sewn for the center piece). The border is obviously sized to fit the quilt center. However, I think it would look better with a thin inner border of my dark fabric (see second picture).

yes, the border goes all the way around the quilt, only my design wall is not big enough.

I know this additional inner border will change my needed dimensions for the outer border or it will not line up properly
How do I add in this little bit of extra border without interfering with the already planned border OR how do I adjust the outer border to accommodate the extra length/width?

I know i can make an additional "block" to the border construction, however that would force my new inner border to be too wide, I am really only wanting to add a thin 1/2 inch or 1 inch wide strip.

Any ideas or are there any math options? I certainly do not want to lose the points of triangles by appliqueing a thin piece on top of it once it's all done.

Thank you for looking!

Gay

The simplest option I can think of is to run your narrow border through the outer borders, and you can have whatever width you like.

Barb in Louisiana

That is a pretty pattern, but hard to add to. I like what Gay came up with. This is a couple of alternatives.

If I were determined, I would add one more block to the borders on each side. If the blocks in the center are 12 inch, that will give you an extra 4 inches to fill. To me your fill has two options. You can add your thinner border of 1 or 2 inches and then fill with your background fabric next to the border strip, thereby floating the outside border and then add the same size float of the background to the outside of the border.

Or, you can add background fabric on either side of the darker inner border and float the darker strip. Then however wide a piece you added right next to the border on the inside, should be added to the outside. Or you can add the same type strip to the outside of the border which would create another floating lt background, dark, light background.

I look forward to seeing what you come up with.

Tartan

With an intricate pieced border, I almost always put in a cheater strip. I would piece the border together and see if it fits your center exactly, if it doesn’t that will show you how wide to make your “ cheater” strip. If it works out perfectly, then pat yourself on the back and finish without adding the strip. Pretty top!

wesing

Could you add a pieced strip between your corner border block and your first border block? You would only need to do it on the horizontal borders. Piece a strip with your pink in the middle and the background fabric top and bottom. It would be like Gay’s example, but ivory/pink/ivory instead of your single dark color. It will extend the design a bit, but if it’s very thin it might not be noticeable.

Jennifer23

I was going to say exactly what Tartan did. I would make the cheater strip the width of your pieced border, pink-black-pink, and insert it in the middle of the border. The centre chain link will then be a bit larger, but still visually balanced.

That's a beautiful quilt! Your guild does much more challenging challenges than mine does.

LAF2019

Loving your ideas!
Tartan, I am not sure I know what you mean by a cheater strip, but after reading Jennifer's comment, i think I have an idea. if I put a small "cheater" in the center of the border (pink black pink) that is equal to the width of my added borders, that would flatten out the look of that particular chain block, which I think I am okay with, if i make it a consistent feature in the center of all the borders. however, that would throw off how the points line up and "point" to the next block underneath it. not sure how that would look visually... if not satisfactory, I think I may have to play around with Wesing/Gay's ideas
I do like Barb's idea, too, and think it would work well, but unfortunately I do not have enough of any of the ivory fabric to make that happen. These were all miscellaneous pieces from my stash and I don't want to go out and buy more of something different, I think it would be too obvious.
Thanks again for helping me think outside the box!

Jennifer23

I think that you've correctly understood what I meant by a cheater strip. Sorry for not being very clear

For me, the narrow strip between the centre of the quilt and the border makes the points "float", so that they don't have to line up. If it bothers you, though, you could use cream-pink-cream cheater strips and place them next to the cornerstones.

QuiltnNan

I love Gay's idea. I only hope I can remember it the next time I have to do a similar change

KalamaQuilts

If it's only 1/2" you can unstitch four seams and reduce the 1/4" seam to 1/8" with a tighter stitch.