Need help with wavy borders
 

I need help with a wavy border, I have the quilt sandwiched and tied. I am a relatively new quilter and I have always measured my borders before sewing them on, a well-meaning friend said she never did and just sewed them on and then cut off the extra length. WRONG! I now have a wavy border and wonder if there is anything i can do to salvage the quilt. The border now measures 3.5 inches. I have tried hand quilting on the border but that wasn't any good, I also cut about 1 inch off, still no good. If someone out there has done the same thing and found a way to correct it, I'd be very interested.

Having read the board for several months, I know there are plenty of smart quilters out there and I am thankful for any advice you can give.

i should mention that I am self taught and have learned much from experience!

Is all of the excess fabric in the quilt top? If so, you could remove ties near the edges and carefully sew darts into the edge of the quilt top (similar to bust darts on garment sewing). This assumes you haven't done the binding yet.

I had that happen to me once....the fold was a bit too deep to be "quilted out." What I did was fold it over and quilted the heck out of it, It helped the print was very busy, and it didn't matter. In your case, it appears you are tying the quilt, right? What you can do is whipstich over the folded edge with tiny, tiny stitches. Or you can fold it down and applique something pretty over it and repeat the applique in a few more places so that it looks done on purpose. Good luck!

I think this would work. In fact it should work very well. Wish I had thought of it on my first quilt...

Dina

I have not even cut off excess backing and batting. Just keep looking at it and shaking my head! Going to try your suggestion. Back is just fine so should be able to hand stitch darts. Thank you so much for the info

I know things are bulky, but if you haven't done any tying into the border area yet and if this bothers you a lot, why not take the border off, measure, and put it back on with the batting and backing folded out of the way during sewing?

I would take the borders off. You have to measure the quilt in 3 places then take an average and cut it to that size then either ease the border or the quilt to fit the border.

Addition to the above post. When you get an average of the 3 measurements of the quilt you cut the borders to that size not the quilt lol

I always measure across the center of the quilt. Vertical, and horizontal, and use those measurements to cut my border.
Works everytime.

:oI want to thank you all for your great ideas. I am going to try to fix with darts and then consider it a great learning experience.