Waves when hanging
 

Advise needed on sq'ing and borders...Some of my quilts with borders are sq but after I sew binding on...one side machine and other hand sewn and I hang I have waves on borders and doesn't hang right. So annoying! Doesn't happen w/all and can't figure out why on some.
What am I doing wrong...I do a standard 2 1/2 binding and sew it on with walking foot...I think what makes it worse is I'm hanging them off the wall with a reg curtain rod...probably wouldn't be as noticeably against the wall. Any hints as to how to get a perfect fall on a hanging quilt...

Had this happen to me on most of my wall-hangings until I started blocking them.
It may sound like a lot of work but it's not and it's totally worth it.

Are you measuring at the center of your quilt from side to side / top to bottom for your border measurements? Squaring the borders will help the edges to hang right. I have a tutorial on my blog for this.

In addition to measuring the middle of the quilt to get the length of the borders, Marti Michell suggests that you may want to FMQ the quilt before adding borders. In addition you should cut your borders on the straight grain (parallel to the selvage) rather than cross grain (WOF) especially when the piece is going to hang. Before I add the borders, I make sure my sides are exactly the same length.

I make a lot of wall hangings. The sides are less wavy if I use a single fold binding. They don't get much wear,so a double fold binding isn't really needed INHO.

Are you still able to miter the corners if you use a single fold?
I'm having trouble imagining that.

Watson

Blocking should help. I like this tutorial on how to block a quilt:
http://fabricbias.com/2008/11/quilt-...hort-tutorial/

....good hints given, and maybe while you are machine sewing that binding on you are tugging a bit, thus putting some stretch in it and the border....just a thought

I also use single fold bindings on wall hangings and mini quilts. They seem to lay flatter and hang straighter. And yes, Watson, the corners are still mitred so they look the same as a double fold binding except flat and smooth.

I made a wallhanging just like I make my quilts and had no problem with it.
Measuring through the center of the quilt is the method to avoid waves. I never measure the edges of the quilt, causes too much grief.

I was shown to measure from the middle also. Side to side and corner to corner. I also don't do competition/show quilts

Perhaps since you hand quilt one side and machine quilt other sides, there may be a tension problem. Block it before you sew binding on and measure, measure across the quilt in several places to make sure it is square.

I was having a problem with imagining how to do it until my DIL showed me and I use it all the time on potholders and small items now. Love it! Would rather use that than the double fold but guess it isn't double so doesn't wear well on quilts. JMHO.

I sew all of my borders into strips, then attach to my quilts. That way, I don't have to measure but one time in both directions. If you sew each border on separately, then you have to measure both directions after each border is added, leaving more chance for stretching, etc. My preference is mitered borders, so sewing all the borders together first before sewing onto the quilt works great. I just finished a quilt that had seven borders.

Do you starch you fabric before you start cutting? Also I put a sleeve on the top and the bottom of the wall hanging.
Also try not to over work your edges. Hope some of these help.

The ladies that work at my LQS said they use the batting called thermalom for their wallhangings because it's denser and they quilts hang flatter. I bought some and am going to try.

That could be the reason my last quilt had no waves because I needed longer then WOF and did cut on straight grain.

Yes, I just watched several utubes...most show measure middle and sides but one showed only middle...I guess I'll be trying both in my next few projects to see what works best

Tugging a bit is what you need to do. But don't tug the quilt, tug the binding. The measuring down the middle is for adding borders and is very important, but when you get to the binding, the quilt itself should be straight and the correct length.
I lay the binding on the quilt, lay the binding on it and tug just a little to be sure it is taut. Then I put my finger on that spot and sew those four or five inches. If you have WOF bindings, don't stretch too much. If you have length of fabric binding, you can stretch quite a bit. I haven't seen a wavy binding around here for years!

We purchased enough Wonder Clips to go all the way around a quilt. We lay the quilt out on our cutting table and smooth out the outside 8" or so. Then we lay the binding on the edge of the quilt smoothing it but not stretching the edges. We clip the binding to the quilt edge. We go all the way around it arranging the quilt so we have that flat 8" edge to work with. We arrange the corners just as you would stitch them. By doing this we are also able to go back and rearrange the border so none of the joining seams end up in a corner. Haven't had trouble with wavy borders.

Is your quilting evenly spaced across the quilt? If you have areas that are more densely stitched and other areas where the quilting lines are farther apart, this will cause the quilt edges to be wavy.

The quilt's I have hanging in my house have two sleeves sewing in them, one at the top and one at the bottom. I use café curtain rods which only stick out about 1.5 inches from the wall. One is used to hang and the other is simply placed in the bottom to keep down the waves. The weight of the rod helps.