Hey everyone! If you are here you have made it to the end of this year’s block of the week project. Give yourself a pat on the back! If you are just finding my blog, click the link here to get to last week’s post where you will find links for every week since the beginning. This week it’s time for me to share how I put together my blocks into a fun, scrappy wall hanging. I will give you a link to the directions also. The topic this week is on pieced borders and how they complete a quilt. You’ll see why I chose this when you look at the completed wall hanging.
Make sure to comment or ask questions below. I am going to choose a winner for my prize package on September 19th from everyone who has commented over the whole series. Here’s the package:

So…. drum roll, please…. Here’s my finished wall hanging!

You can find the instructions for completing the wall hanging this way here: 2022 BOW Finishing.
Pieced Borders
As you can see by the wall hanging above, I love to play with borders. I don’t mind plain borders, but as a scrap quilter I usually have to find a way to make these scrappy too.
The first step in bordering a quilt is to measure your quilt top to make sure you cut and piece borders that will fit. Now, with a wall hanging you probably can skip this step because it’s smaller and there’s less of a chance that it doesn’t measure the right size. Here’s how you measure your quilt tops:
- Step 1: Measure your quilt top vertically in 3 places. On the left, in the middle and on the right. Add those numbers together and divide by 3 for the average. (See diagram below) That will be the length of the border strips for the sides.

- Step 2: Attach the side border strips and then measure the quilt top horizontally in 3 places. Through the center and on the right and the left. This will be the length of the border strips for the top and bottom. (see diagram)

- Step 3: Add the top and bottom borders:

You can use this method to get your quilt top to the size you need for your pieced border as well. For example, if your quilt top measures 61 x 61″ but you need it to be a number divisible by 4 to make a pieced border fit right, you can add borders to get your quilt top to 64 x 64″. Or, sometimes, I like to put a plain border between the quilt blocks and the pieced border as sort of a frame, like I did on my quilt, Scrappy North Stars:

The piano key border above and other simple ones are fairly easy to do and you see them on quilts quite a bit. But… here are some unique ones that I like to do.
On these quilts below, I actually took an element of the block, and turned it into a border.


For Trinkets, on the left, I took the color print unit from the quilt block and used that to border the quilt. For Star Wheels on the right, I took the black print unit framing the star blocks and turned that into a border with color prints:


Here are some fun pieced borders that are a bit unusual. I had fun coming up with these and I think they add a lot to these quilts. Most of the time, I will do really unusual borders on smaller quilts first, like wall hangings or table runners before trying it out on a large quilt.



These types of borders are also a great way to use up left over fabric from the project or to make the quilt bigger.
So, that’s a wrap on this year’s block of the week sew-along. I hope you had fun whether you put it together into a wall hanging like mine or use the blocks in your own way.
Don’t forget to comment to get more entries into the drawing that takes place on September 19th!
***We have a winner! CONGRATS, Donna!!***
Happy Quilting!
Deanne