Uneven quilt uneven border HELP
 

So what do I do. First border is off up to a little over 1/4 inch in places. I was taught to now square up quilt top before adding borders, do it afterwards. So if I proceed with the last border and the square it-it is obviously going to be really short In places. I could take off the beginning border, square up the top and add border again. I just don't know what would be better visually. Any ideas for a soon to be wonky quilt?

When you measure for the borders you measure/cut the strips down the middle of quilt. Then you make it fit when you sew it on the sides.

How big is the quilt? 1/4" off in places probably won't matter on a larger quilt. Are you sure this is going to make a difference?

Typically you would want to square up your quilt before adding borders, measuring through the middle of the quilt and cutting your borders to fit that measurement. Usually you do this for the side borders first, then again for the top and bottom borders. If you have multiple borders, you go through this process for each border.

Did you measure through the middle of the quilt and cut the borders before sewing them on? If you did not, then you may want to remove the borders and start over. This is because the tendency is always to sew on more border than there is quilt top if you do not pre-cut your borders. Even with a single border, this results in wavy edges on your quilt. The wave effect gets even more pronounced with multiple borders.

One thing I can tell you is this: Do not use a border that is shorter than the body of the quilt. If you do, the quilt inside the border will 'bowl' or 'cup' - that is, it will never lay flat.

How do I know? I bought an adorable childs quilt at a thrift store for $2. All the borders were between 1/4 and 1/2" too short for the quilt top. To fix it, I had to remove all the quilting, seperate the top, batting and bottom, take the borders off...then I discovered that the cornerstone blocks of the borders were cut between 1/4 and 1/2" too big. So I removed the cornerstones and re-sewed them to the borders, then put the borders back on the body of the quilt.

The borders were now long enough to fit the quilt, although the cornerstones were not matched to the corners of the quilt body. Then I re-sandwiched and re-quilted the quilt. Long story short, it was still cute and no longer 'bowled' in the middle.

I will never do that again, too much work for too little gain, although anything I do that teaches me something is worthwhile.

I did measure down the center, and used that length-but the top of the quilt was wonky to begin with.

I went to a Jennie Raymen class and she advised squaring off before border and depending on your design if it had seams which would contract your edge to measure about 3" from the top/bottom and the same in from your edges and also a spaced out along your edge and cut your longest required. Also to pin at each edge and the match inwards to ease fabric in evenly. Hope this makes sense.

I have yet to make a quilt larger than crib size where I didn't find a difference of 1/4"-3/8" from one long side to the other. By measuring thru the middle of the quilt (as advised above), cutting the borders to that measurement, and then easing them onto the quilt, each one turned out beautifully.

FWIW, even tho I'm listed as a "senior member" of the QB, I'm only an advanced beginner, at best. I was lucky enough to have found the QB before I made my first quilt. What a blessing it has been to learn from people who know so much more than I do! Good luck!

I didn't used to be as careful with making sure borders squared before starting to long arm--now I am! I try to make sure that the quilt is square (not more than 1/4" and hopefully less) before I put on the borders. And remember that each border that you put onto an unsquare quilt, the more unsquare the end result. Acutally, I try to remember and take the time to square each block as I go, too.

One thing that' I'd suggest is that you let your long arm quilter know if there is any problems when you give it to her/him. Talk with them about your concerns so that can be considered when planning the design. A really wavy border may force the long armer to make a tuck(that would look like a straight seamed border)to prevent puckers.

You could also deliberately make the borders wonky - like 2" on left side going to 4.5" on the right side - then make the quilt square after all the borders are on. The borders will be different sizes all over the place so you would not be able to tell that there was an "oops" - it would look deliberate! You do want the end result to be square unto itself, but wonky blocks are in vogue, so why not wonky borders?? However, if you do have the quilt quilted by a longarm quilter, please tell them what happened and what you did to correct it - very important so they can do whatever they need to do from the beginning to make sure you end up with a flat quilt!!