I was wondering
 

Hi! I went to the library yesterday and check out a few quilting books Was looking through them to get new ideas for the baby quilt I am working on found one that has a different border than I am use to and want to try. They want me to miter the corner I know I should know what this is but can't remember so could someone please explain it to me sorry for the dumb question

Here's a good tutorial from this board:
http://www.quiltingboard.com/tutoria...rs-t21057.html

I have never mitered my corners. They have always been straight on. I bind opposite sides and one lands over the other. Have given many quilts away and have had no complaints so far. :-)

I love mitered borders!!

A mitered border looks like this:
http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g2...psdcb2ec3d.jpg

Whereas the "blunt" border is like this:

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g2...ps73332713.jpg

(not my quilts, btw, though I've made plenty of both styles; I found these on the 'net)

The mitered border is a bit of a skill to achieve well, but not that hard. It's especially called for if the border has stripes or a pattern It's not totally necessary if the border is a solid color and/or so quilted that the seam is hard to see anyway. However, I miter almost all of my borders these days just because I think it creates a finer, more professional finish.

Good luck!
--Q

I taught myself to miter borders over 25 years ago and still do most of my quilts this way. I personally prefer what I consider to be the more skilled/professional/"master category"/eye-appealing look of mitering borders.

My quilting "bible"--the book I bought to teach myself to quilt--is *Quilting for People Who Still Don't Have Time to Quilt*. It instilled many many good habits in me, but one of the things she said was that we only have so many mitered borders within us, so use them wisely! That was liberating as a rank beginner because I was scared of mitered borders but now I love them deeply. I guess I have a *lot* of mitered borders within me! :D

--Q

looks like it is back to the library for you. There are so many different ways to mitre a corner and it is best to try it the first time with pictures in front of you. You will get the hang of it quickly and it is a nice finish. But butted corners has its place right up there with mitrering.

Mitering is not problem, once you learn the trick, it's easy peasy. The one problem I had in the beginning was not allowing enough fabric to carry over to do the mitering. But it was a lesson learned and now I allow extra. I think cause Math was one of my strongest subjects and I had a lot of practice with angels when remolding my house, it kind of comes natural, but I still had to practice. . Take a large square and practice putting boarders and making a miter. The light bulb will go off and you're off and running. If the above tutorial doesn't help, there are many more.

Thank you for all the help They are all good suggestions

mitered corners are really not that hard. and if you don't get it right the first time, pressing it will show you where to sew to tighten up the angle. or at least that always seems to work for me.

they do eat up a weirdly large amount of fabric at a point in construction that i am often running close to not having enough.

Thank you, PaperPrincess, for the tutorial link!

Very nice tutorial. I've only mitered borders a couple of times but I have a question. I just did one this week and my borders are 'wavy'. I have learned to avoid this when doing blunt borders, measuring across the center of the quilt and cutting the border to length, but the extra fabric required for miitering seems to defeat this method. Any advice on that?

I've only mitered one or two quilts in the past and since starting to use Elmers Glue in my assembling, I find using it to match up the corners before stitching is ideal...............at least for me. I've been using the glue whenever its critical for matching up.

I posted several tutorials on Easy Mitered Corners. One is at http://www.quiltingboard.com/tutoria...s-t159462.html

What about mitered borders on a hexagon shaped quilt top? I'm doing a tree skirt for my daughter and would like to miter the borders. I know it's not necessary, but I would like to give it that extra touch. Would I do it the same as a square quilt top? I know how to miter with a 90 deg. angle. Thanks.

I usually only miter corners where the pattern of the border is so prominently striped that it would look good that way. If the border fabric is busy and it isn't really chopped up looking to do straight across seams, I do that. If that pattern would be too badly interrupted as and look bad, I will do setting squares on the corners.

Don't be afraid of miters. The best advice I ever got was, if you are using multiple borders, do not do each one separately. Instead, sew the strips of the border together, THEN cut the lengths for the four borders and miter (or mitre, for our Canadian and Australian :-) .) Better to do just four miters than four for each border. Good luck!!