Continous boirders
 

Awhile ago someone posted a thread about saving fabric by sewinng all lengths of borders together and cutting lengths as needed. Sound like a good fabric saving idea but when I tried it I found that there were seams in unwanted places and some borders actually had 3 seams in them. Not really sure if this is good idea or if I really saved that much fabric!

I agree bigsister63. Wouldn't work for me unless it was a small quilt.

I find I sometimes have to sew two or three WOF strips together to get the legth of border I need. Using the diagonal seams make them less noticeable. I don't cut long strips from LOF, Seems like a waste of fabric. I would rather save it for another project. Just me.

I try not to have seams in my borders unless they match perfectly or appear seamless. I have been known to buy yardage just to get the length I need. The left overs go into my stash.

I will cut my border lengthwise but I only work with 42 - 50 inches of length and seam the borders. I like using lengthwise because it is less stretchy.

i try to cut the lof border fabric before i cut for the blocks. i'm not keen on seams in borders... not to say that i've never had to :)

The borders themselves use slightly LESS fabric if you don't piece them, because you don't use up fabric in the seam allowances of the piecing. But if you are buying fabric specifically for the borders, you can often buy less if you are willing to piece them. Also, if you already have the fabric, you may have to piece it if it isn't long enough. That's why you will hear that piecing the borders saves fabric.

The quilt I'm working on now has an inner border that I had to piece, because the piece of fabric in my stash was not long enough. (I think it was 27" long, and the quilt was around 84" square.) There are at least 2 seams on each side, but I'm confident that they won't show up after the quilt is quilted. If I had not been willing to piece it, I would have had to buy almost 2.5 yards of fabric, and I'm trying to use up stash instead!

I do this when I am in a pinch and do not have enough fabric and the store is closed. It is basically the same principle as preparing strips for binding. If you do not want seams ending in odd places play with the positioning a little bit. I have no problems with my quilts having a seam or two in odd places but I try not to do that if I am making a quilt as a gift for someone else.

It depends how you look at it. I just made 2 quilts which were 25" square. Cutting (without seams) meant I had to cut 4 strips of fabric for the borders. If I had pieced them, I only would have needed 3 strips. So, a couple of inches potential savings. But not, in my opinion, enough to justify adding seams. Even on a large quilt, I will calculate if I can make use of the "off-cut" from each border piece - but I won't do it if it means adding an extra seam to one side.

I usually buy yardage. I have pieced them by matching the fabric pattern, but that was a hassle. I have also put pieced blocks in the corners, or near the corners to make up for being short fabric.