quilt3311

I only miter borders when using a pattern that can "turn the corner". Or striped fabric where I can make it meet to turn the corner. Use strips on sides then top and bottom most of the time. Personal choice here. One can always use the fabric cut off when mitering for scrap quilts. Personal choice.

applique

I find it a bit easier to starch the corners heavily before making a miter so it lies flatter.

grandaud

Don't miter the corners, but I do miter the corners on the binding. Was watching a judge at the county fair. If your binding was not mitered she just put the quilt aside and would not consider it for a ribbon.

AlienQuilter

You know what's so funny! Hearing about that judge passing on unmitered binding. We should send her to the quilt museum in Paducah! Let her judge all the beautiful antique quilts there and see how many she would give a ribbon to!

I remember my first jean quilt, I did not know how to put binding on and I did a really bad job of it. Later, when I learned how, I tried to get the quilt back from my then 13 year old son. He told me to keep my mitts off his quilt! He didn't care that the binding wasn't put on and that the quilt police might give me a ticket! He loved his quilt just the way it was. He got a big kick out of helping me tie his quilt.

I bet the quilt police really don't approve of "tieing" quits either. When I was a kid, that's the only way we did it. When machine quilting started being so popular, the quilting police had to relent and some, to this day, will still claim it's not a real quilt unless it's hand quilted!

cmosey

This is a picture of a miter from my tutorial at http://blog.caronmosey.com/2009/12/t...er-corner.html . It is the final step of the miter process, but before the excess fabric is trimmed off the back after sewing the miter.

Blackberry

How do you go around the edges of the quilt without mitering the corners

sandpat

I agree...personal choice depending on the fabric in the border. Sometimes I do...sometimes I don't.

Scissor Queen

Borders are the unpieced fabrics around the center pieced blocks. Bindings go around the edge of the quilt to finish it off. Two different things.

Jan in VA

"Worldly"?!
Point of view is a strange thing, isn't it.
Mitered borders generally look more polished, skilled, "finished," professional, in my view.

If I'm applying more than one border, and I usually do, then I sew all the border strips together first and apply to the top as one unit, with mitered corners done in one step. If I'm using a large print, I can often plan the print placement in the corners with a miter, which creates a complete pattern -- such as a full flower not cut off in the middle of a bloom.

Use a long ruler with a 45 degree angle line on it. Pin. Mark your miter line. Pin. Sew the first couple corners with a larger basting stitch. Check it out; if it works, then resew and trim.

[Basting prevents the frustration of reverse sewing a long tightly sewn seam if you find you've mitered the wrong direction and have made a fitted sheet instead of a flat quilt!] I taught myself to miter; you can too. Go for it!

Jan in VA

feline fanatic

My very first quilt had mitered borders because that is how the instructions in the book read. I am glad because it taught me the process. I like the look of pieced borders and cornerstones as well. So now I only miter if I am using a border fabric with a print that calls for it, like a stripe of some sort, or as many here have also posted, when I have multiple borders it is sometimes easier to sew the borders together and then miter them on. Always it is dependent on if I have enough of my border fabric. I tend to buy fabric and stash and then choose a quilt pattern. This has bitten me in the behind more times then I care to admit and of course by the time I end up making the quilt out of said stash the fabric is several years old and impossible to find more of. You'd think I'd learn. Well I guess I have, when stash building I just buy more yardage :lol: