Originally Posted by Barb in Louisiana

I keep it simple. My quilts are typically square because I measure and square up all the elements as I go. And, yes, I do a good bit of ripping and resewing to achieve this. Having squared up everything as I go means that the borders should be the same on opposite ends, or at least within 1/2 inch of each other.

Regardless of whether I cut the border, length of fabric or WOF, I still mark and pin at each end and on the 1/4, 1/2 and 3/4 points on the top and the border before I start sewing. Then I snug the border which is on the top as I sew the two together. I have never had a wavy border when I did it this way.

I found out really early in quilting, that if I just laid a length of border on the pieced top and just let the machine pull it in freely, it would wave every time. I think that must be because the bottom feed dogs do pull in a tiny bit more of the fabric closest to them every time they move. This extra pulling ends up with the top being longer than the bottom, so it can only wave.