If you do not use a border on your quilts, how do you finish the edges? Also if you do use a border and want a gathered lace ruffle (a narrow one), do you attach the lace and the border at same time or the border then the lace?

New at it.

I do both, I think it depends on the quilt. I don't want to take away from the quilt design itself, but at the same time, on other quilts, a pieced, or fancier border, really adds to the quilt, so it just depends.

Thank you Happy MRS. Your reply helped me to make up my mind.

Sometimes plain is good but I think pieced borders can really make a quilt pop. I hate to hear when people add plain borders to make a quilt come up to a certain size. But a quilt belongs to the maker so she or he can do whatever pleases them right? That's how I look on it--I try to not judge in that respect.

I too think of the borders as a frame - they need to set off the quilt not detract from it. It depends on each quilt what looks best.

You may be confusing binding (which is applied to the edges of the quilt sandwich after the quilting is finished, to hide and hold together those raw edges) with borders (applied to the quilt top before quilting). I know I mixed up terms when I started quilting, still do in fact.

I am very partial to antique or reproductions style quilts and I don't think that they used borders like we do today. I feel that many of the antique quilts had the patchwork pattern out to the edge or just had extra background fabric out to the edge. This is all just personal preference and I agree the border does make a place for some very nice quilting to go around and it is also a quick finish.

I often get enough material that I have strips of each of the materials in the quilt for the border.

I recently started thinking I would challenge myself to do more pieced borders. The first thing I tried was Bonnie Hunter's Braid border...it was so much fun to make!

Another I would like to try is when the border is part of the block, just colored in a way that makes it look like it's a border.

Borders, I can't finish anything yet to even do a border!!1