attaching borders after quilting center?
 

Hi, everyone -

I'm hoping that some of you will share expertise on this (and feel free to say it won't work!)

I do mostly quilting with a walking foot, but my various attempts at tapering to tiny stitches at the ends of the quilting lines or backstitching have left lumps of thread on the back or just visible "dented in" spots that one could see from space. So, I've relied on tying and burying knots.

Now, swollen joints are becoming a problem, so, for this last quilt, I just ran the design off the edge and backstitched.

But for the next one, I'd hoped to do decorative stitching in the borders. Is there a way to quilt the center of the quilt, backstitching at the edge, and then attach the borders? I am thinking that there won't be a free seam allowance on the edge for attachment, since the backstitching will be tacking it down periodically.

Thanks for any suggestions you would like to share. I'm worried that if I don't make some accommodation, I won't even be able to piece. :(

Hugs,
Charlotte

I think you can come up with a plan if you check the internet or YouTube for quilt as you go techniques.

There are several different ways to quilt the center then attach the borders. One way is leave the backing whole, just roll up the border portion to keep it out of the way. Sandwich the center with the batting cut about 2 inches larger than the center. Quilt the center. Now lay the borders on the center quilted portion, right sides together and sew a quarter inch seam thru the whole sandwich. whip stitch a piece of batting for the borders to the center batting, then flip the border over & quilt that.
Another way is quilt the center and borders independently, then join using a QAYG technique, like this one:
http://www.quiltingboard.com/tutoria...l-t283918.html
There are others, basically all are variations of QAYG techniques. If you are planning on doing this for future quilts, a good reference is Marti Michell's 'machine quilting in sections'.
https://www.amazon.com/Marti-Michell...=marti+michell

I also highly recommend Marti Michell's book. It gives several different ways of quilting in sections and explains why you would choose one over another for a particular quilt.

Marti Mitchell's book would be an excellent reference. I used one of her techiniques on a quilt I just made and it was really easy.

If I understand what you're saying, I don't think it will work. If you quilt into your seam allowance, it will not come together.

In addition to PaperPrincess' suggestion above, one other thing I'd consider would be doing "thread painting" on the quilt top before you layer your sandwich. That way, you could catch part of the decorative stitching in the seam allowance but could still trim the batting to be 1/4-1/2" shorter on each side to allow you to have a nicely finished seam -- or extend the batting, but still have a seam allowance in your top & bottom to allow you to add on fabric there. Once it's all put together, I'd then go back & SID the seam between the center & the border to help hide the edge of the threads & flatten out the seam.

It's not that difficult. I enlarged a quilt 12 inches all around. Using the 1/4 inch+ at the edge I attached the new backing, then the new top edges. I used a glue stick to anchor the batting and the pinned the critical seam line. Once it was quilted there was no indication it had been added later other than the obvious material differences.

I have done it using a video tutorial as a guide. If you google adding borders quilt as you go I think it is called there are some it wasn't all that hard and I am no expert!!

Thanks So Much to all of you who reached out with advice on this. I know nothing about QAYG and don't even know if that's what some of you are describing (haha!), but I'll print out your advice and order the Marti Michell book today. With 5 tops ready to go, I'm grateful to know it can be done!

hugs,
Charlotte