I'm working on a single-size quilt for my DD and currently doing SID for the top. As I'm fairly new to MQ, I'm just wondering how I shd quilt the borders. Quite tempted to try out some simple FMQ but worried at the same time I would do a bad job as I've never attempted this before. If I'm using a walking foot, what sort of designs could I sew? Not sure if simple wavy lines would look awful on the quilt. How about straight lines that interlock each other?

I have an outer border of 4.25" and 2 inner borders of 1.5".

Any advice here will be much appreciated.

[IMG]http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x...s/DSC03769.jpg[/IMG]

I can't answer your question, but I wanted to tell you how pretty your quilt is!! :thumbup:

Beautiful Quilt what about tryingwavy lines that echo the quilt pattern I guess zigzags would be what I mean

Thanks! I can't believe that I've started this project more than 2 years ago and still counting! LOL. That's why I need to get it completed pretty soon. It's a very, very late Christmas pressie. :lol:

Your quilt is very pretty.

Do you mean to do the zigzags from top to bottom, for both length and width?

I think zigzags in the border would be perfect, with your walking foot they should be great.

Yes you can do more decorative quilting in the borders. I just finished one that I will use in the next QuiltersTV taping. I don't have a picture but can describe it. You can see the stencils at www.quiltingstencils.com
The quilt center is 5.5" squares. I SID those.
The first border finished at 1.5" I used two lines from SCO-274-1.5. The second border finished at a little over 3.5". I used SCO-179-2.5
Both these designs can be quilted with the walking foot which is the reason I choose them. Both had to be adjusted a bit to fit the space. I drew the design and made several copies and taped them together in the space to determine the amount of adjustment needed. Both had to be lengthened less than an inch to fit the space. I marked up to the center of each motif and slid the stencil slightly to make the adjustment consistent. They both quilted quickly and added more interest to the simple squares of the center.

Thanks for the great advice! I have some stencils from www.quiltingstencils.com too. Will check them out to see how I could use them for my borders.

Very pretty!

I'm just thinking aloud....will cross hatching work here? Using the points of the zig zag lines? I've not tried out cross-hatching but read something about them. What's the best way to go about doing this?

if you want, you could do straight lines at an angle across your border. like this

Beautiful quilt u have here! The lines work very well and compliment the quilt design. Is this similar to cross-hatching? I remember my walking foot comes with a guide. Can that be used to quilt these straight lines?

Hi vivientan,I'm new here.but not to quilting.I was taught early on that straight patterns should have some curves in the quilting,and round shapes should have straight lines to compliment the patterns in it.Like you could do a curved lines like the 'cable' would work great here in your border and you could use your walking foot to do it too.Very pretty quilt.Good luck

Vivientan, your quilt is really lovely. Since you haven't really FMQ'd much I think NativeTexans's idea would really look good and work great on your quilt. It would add a lot of dimenision to your quilt. Especially with the way your squares/points are designed. Those lines would really make the quilt flow to me. If using you walking foot and the metal bar you can attach to it would give you equal measurements between the lines and would go really easily.

Holice's idea is great also but after quilting for many, many years I have yet to master those stencils. I do so much better on my own there but fortunately many people have no problems. I just have to learn how to do those darn stencils as they seem to be the bain of my existence. Holice knows her stuff and I sure wish she would do a tut for those of us that have problems following those stencil lines that would look good and flow smoothly because I just seem to have a major brain blip on that procedure and would love to learn how to do them. :cry:

actually i took my long ruler and laid it on the inner blocks and used my plastic Hera marker to mark the lines. indentations I then sewed on. no marks to wash out. I think i used my walking foot. usually do.

Ok, back to this thread. I'm about to start to MQ the borders for my quilt and will be sewing straight lines as advised by some quilters. Just wondering, for a bed quilt, is it ok to MQ just straight lines on the borders? Or should I do more MQ here? I'm worried that the batting may gather over time due to extensive usage. Any advice here?

what every you decide to (try) first make a little practice piece and try it out on that before you do it to your beautiful quilt...fmq takes practice- never looks great the first time- so it is always best to do a little practicing before working on the big-real project.
once you get the hang of it you may find you love fmq-ing.

If I'm using a walking foot for the borders, is it good enough to just sew straight lines? Will it cause the batting to gather over time?