Ripping borders out is Not my favorite thing to do
 

My sister asked me to long arm quilt a quilt she put together from some blocks our Mother made well before her death.

I laid the quilt out flat before I agreed to quilt it. It has a 4 inch border all around it, but it was wavy. My sister took the borders off and re-sewed them on. I said thanks and took it with me.

Yesterday, I put the quilt top on the long arm - the borders are still wavy! So I decided to take the borders off and give them one more try before quilting.

As I was ripping the first border seam out, I noticed that the seam was subtly puckered. It dawned on me that the waviness of the border might be related to that. Hmmmm.

When I sewed the first of the 4 border on for the third and last time, I pinned it at the seam and smoothed the outer edge (width) and the length of the entire border to be flat before the next pin went in. I've only done one border so far; that border is 1.75 inches too long!

My conclusion is that the thread tension was too high when the borders were sewn on, thus causing the subtle gathering of the fabric at the seam. As with intentional gathering, the outer edges of the border became wavy.

If I'm wrong about that, please tell me!

3 more borders to go...but I learned something, so it is (almost) worth it.

Just think it will be so much better when it's all done.
Says the one who needs to rip a row of 12 blocks because I don't like
the way I pressed the seams. Hate bulky seams.

so, besides being too long you think her machine tension was so tight it was basically gathering the edge? Hmmm, could be the problem. Or maybe like my DS, she just slaps a border on without squaring quilt first!

I'm not big on squaring myself. In this case, though, we both measured the quilt in 3 places lengthwise, 3 places width wise and it was square. I didn't watch her measure the borders, though, so don't know how she did that.

Ugh! I had to do similar once - learned my lesson the hard way, as usual.

Did you measure the borders before reattaching. Sounds like they might not be correct. Make sure the two side borders are the same. Same with ends. Take the two sides measure down the center of the quilt and cut to the measurement if necessary. Sewvon and the measure the width. Etc. you may already know this. And then ease in if necessary. There is indication that something is not right when you say the border is 1+ inches longer than the side of the quilt.

Yes, it makes perfect sense. I'm still pretty inexperiened, so couldn't figure out how my sashing got wavy. What did I do wrong? The quilt before it was flat.

Finally figured it out - I had a lighter weight thread in the bobbin than the top and it messed up the bobbin tension and I had wavy sashing. I just didn't know it mattered that much.

bkay

I have a feeling you are not measuring the border strips properly. Most quilting books should show the only way to do it so as not to have wavy borders. I have a book by Lynette Jensen and that is how I attach borders. Always turn out perfectly. Good luck.

One of mine had wavy borders on two sides. After examining the machine I discovered that the top thread was looped around something wrong. After fixing that, all was well.