Do You Do … Pieced Borders?

I consider the borders of a quilt the “frame” for the design. Many times, a plain border will do. But with me, I can’t just do plain! Often I will add a pieced border alone or do one in conjunction with a plain border. Here’s one I am working on now:

This happens to be a one color sawtooth border that I am preparing. I also like to do scrappy sawtooth borders as well. Here’s an example of a scrappy border I used for one of the quilts in my book, Blooming Patchwork.

Don’t you think the sawtooth border makes a great frame for the applique in this quilt?

Another reason to add a scrappy pieced border is to use up extra fabric or to make a quilt a bit bigger. For my Scrappy North Stars, I used what is often called a piano key border to frame this quilt.

For this quilt, I framed the blocks with a plain black skinny border and then put the piano key border on the outside.

Another border option I have use is a scrappy checkerboard border along with a flying geese border. My Sister’s Reunion lap quilt shows this type of border the best:

Notice the large flying geese frame the blocks, then I have framed them with a multi-colored checkerboard border.

Here’s a couple of other interesting borders I have done. This first one takes an element from the actual block in the quilt and uses it for the border. It almost give the illusion that the quilt continues on. This pattern is called Paper Chain.

For my next unique border, here is my quilt pattern, High Prairie Blooms:

Notice for this border, I just cut strips from the colors used in the blocks and alternated them with some background strips to create this border.

So, this is just a few borders you can use to jazz up your next quilt. What kind of borders do you use? Share some thoughts you have on pieced borders and also some tips you follow when adding borders. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Happy Quilting!
Deanne