I am planning on sewing 2 borders to my top. The first is 1" finished and the second is 3" finished. Is it a good idea to strip sew these together and then sew them to the top, or is it better to sew each individual border to the top?

It depends on how you want your corners to look. If you're going to miter them, sewing the strips together first works okay. If you're not going to miter the corners and you sew the strips together first you'll have T corners instead of L corners.

If you strip sew them I would think you will have to mitre the corners to have your individual borders go all the way around. If you sew them on one at a time, you won't have to mitre. Hope that makes sense!

in order for the corners to come out right, think you have to sew them on one at a time.

If you are comfortable with mitered corners, go with the strip piecing. Otherwise you will have irregular(?) borders.

Thanks for your answers. I'm not afraid of mitered corners, but I think this top will look better with straight corners. So I will be sewing the borders on individually. Thanks again.

Seems like more work, but the payoff is better if you sew each individually. Mitered corners can be work, too, if you strip-piece the 2 borders. ALSO, I measure, measure and measure - top, bottom and middle - each time I add a border, so the quilt doesn't get stretched or "wavy" and I can adjust the length of the border accordingly, if needed. Good luck.

You can sew the borders together for block borders as well. A smaller block or a part of the block in the 4 inch corner blocks. Have fun! Luann