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I Want to Make My Quilt Bigger!

I have heard this from many quilters over the years. They like a quilt pattern and it’s design but want to make the quilt a different size. There are a lot of patterns on the market that give instructions for different sizes, but what if the pattern you like doesn’t do that? Well, below I will share my ideas on how you can make a quilt bigger. Let’s get started!

Playing with Blocks

One of the easiest ways to  make a quilt bigger is to make more blocks, adding additional rows and columns. But an interesting twist to that is to add a completely different alternating block to a one block design quilt. It will serve the purpose of enlarging the size of the quilt and could add some secondary design. Let’s look at some examples.

The quilt on the left is one of my one block quilts, Marbles & Jacks, that is lap quilt size. If you want to make it bigger, you can add an alternating block, like I did in the rendering on the right.

The quilt on the left is 66 x 78″ which is a good size lap quilt. On the right, I added a plain block as an alternating block and it now measures 92 x 104″. Add a wider border and you can have a king size quilt. The plain blocks could be in what ever color you’d like and are a great canvas for your machine quilting.

Here’s an example if you do not want plain blocks. Add in blocks with a simple design, so they don’t take away from the original block design.

The simple snowball block added as the alternate block serves to make the quilt bigger but also creates an interesting “criss cross” secondary design. When adding an alternate block, make sure it “plays” well with the original block.

Playing with Sashing 

The next element that can be added to the quilt above to make it larger is sashing. Sashing is simply defined as plain strips of fabric separating blocks. That is historically what it was used for, whether it was in a one block style quilt or in a sampler. Sashing can also be pieced to create a secondary design. Here’s what sashing would do to my Marbles & Jacks quilt:

I added 4″ sashing to separate the blocks and the quilt now measures 84 x 100″. You can see in the last picture that I changed the look by making the sashing a light color.

I recommend the width of your sashing be no wider than 1/3 the measurement of your block. The Marbles & Jacks blocks are 12″ finished, so the widest the sashing should be is 4″ finished.

Here’s a fun thing I have done with sashing to create a secondary design in some of my other quilts.

By adding stitch & flip corners to sashing pieces and joining them with cornerstone squares between the blocks, I created stars to adds interest.

Here’s some sashing rules of thumb that I follow.

Tip #1: Keep the sashing the same width throughout. Unless you’re going for a “wonky” look. I like to make my sashing a width that is divisible into the block size, but I’m also careful not to make it too wide. If I have 6″ blocks, my sashing is usually no wider than 2″ finished. With a 12″ block, I can go up to a width of 4″ if I like.

Tip #2: Plan ahead if you want plain sashing, sashing with cornerstones or if you want to create a design using the sashing like in my examples above. The main reason for this is to help with picking out fabric that coordinates well with your blocks.

Tip#3: The easiest way to do plain sashing is to have shorter strips joining the blocks into the rows you want and then having longer strips, the length of the rows, to join them together. However, if you are doing corner stones, all your sashing strips will measure the size of your blocks on all sides. Here’s an example of each:

Playing with Borders

Finally, borders can be used to make a quilt bigger. They can also serve to use up left over fabric. Of course you can always add a wide, plain border to the quilt to increase the size, but, why not have some fun?

A fun way to make the quilts larger is to have a creative pieced border. For Scrappy North Stars on the left, I used the leftover fabric to make a piano key border. You can actually make these strips that make up the keys as long as you want to increase the size of the quilt. For Seaside Cottage on the right, I made large pieced stars for the border to increase the size of the quilt.

Another way to enlarge a quilt is to add several borders to it. They can all be plain or they can be a mixture of pieced and plain. Here’s two examples:

Stepping Stones, on the left, uses several plain borders to enlarge the quilt. Each border is a different width. The last brown border can be made even wider to make the quilt bigger if I wanted.

For Constellations, on the right, I used a mixture of plain and pieced borders. Often if you want to have a pieced border, you may need to start out with a plain one first to make the quilt top measure the size needed for the pieced border to fit.

So, that’s my lesson for this week. Have fun trying out some of these suggestions if you want to enlarge a quilt you are working on. It may take a little math to figure out the additional fabric needs, but you can do it!

Happy Quilting!
Deanne

Borders Add a Finishing Touch

When I am planning a new quilt, I don’t always have an idea for a border. Often I need to make the blocks and lay them out on my design wall before any ideas come to me. I have a design program on my computer but when I try designing borders there before I have even made a block, they don’t always live up to my expectations. It’s fun to play though! So let’s get started.

To Border or Not

First, decide if your quilt even needs a border. There are some one block or two block quilts that don’t need anything else added to them. Just because you can add a border, doesn’t always mean you have to add a border. Here are three of my quilts, both with two different style blocks, that I thought worked without a border.

The quilt on the left above has such a busy look already that I thought a border would actually draw the eye away from the interesting secondary designs that emerge. The same goes for the quilt on the far right above. You can imagine that design continuing on. For the quilt in the center, since a design is created where the two different blocks meet, I thought that was enough interest created. 

Now, some quilters like to add borders to make a quilt larger than the pattern if they need it bigger. For those quilts above, I would just suggest making more blocks to create more rows and columns.

Types of Borders

Now if you decided to add a border, here are some of your options. They range from easy and plain to pieced to appliqué.

First are plain borders. These borders are the ones quilters generally added to make a quilt bigger. I like them because they create a frame to enhance a design but also not draw your eye away from the design. I call these “quiet” borders. Here are two examples:

The lap quilt on the left has a plain black border that fades into the background and makes the blocks more noticeable. For the quilt on the right, I wanted the scrappy blocks to stand out more so I surrounded quilt top with borders the same color as the background within the quilt top.

You can also create a frame with a border that is a little less quiet and almost looks like a photo matte.

The thin, red inner border frames up the center design and the green border is added to brings more attention to that red border.

Now on to pieced borders. Big confession here. I have a lot of fun with pieced borders. They can be as simple as a framing checkerboard of leftover fabric to a design that fits into the theme of the quilt. Here’s a few of my quilts with these examples. First up, a simple pieced border:

The simple checkerboard border is created from leftover fabric from the blocks. Instead of a plain strip as a frame, this one adds a little fun.

Then there are borders that use an element of the block in the quilt to make a pieced border. Here are three examples.

Paper Chain, on the left, does this on a greater level than the other two. Here’s a closer look:

The other two quilts just pull a small element from the block to make the border:

Notice too how there is a plain border between the blocks and the pieced border. This serves two purposes. First, it sets off the designs of both the center of the quilt and the border. And the second purpose is sizing the quilt up so the pieced border you have planned fits. 

Here is a fun pieced border that actually continues the theme of the quilt:

For Celebrate Christmas above, I created pieced ribbons in the border to frame the Christmas ornaments.

There are so many other pieced borders I have done, but I don’t want to bore you with too many examples. You can look at photos of all my designs here: Pattern Gallery. You’ll see examples of a lot of these pieced borders there.

Now on to appliqué borders. I do these types of borders when I have added a plain border and decided that it was too plain! Here’s two of my favorite ones:

I think the appliqué adds a fun finish and frame to both of these quilts.

Finally there’s the pieced border that flips things from the conventional to not so conventional. Here’s my quilt, Seaside Cottage, that has small scrappy blocks making up the quilt so I used larger blocks for the border. I think it adds an interesting balance.

So those are some of my border ideas. As I said earlier, the possibilities are endless. Have some fun and play! Especially if you have fabric left over after making blocks. Next week I am going to cover another element that can be added to a quilt to enhance a design, sashings.

Until next week, 

Happy Quilting!
Deanne

Personalize Your Quilt with Borders!

I touched briefly on quilt borders, in a post back in December, and about how to coordinate them with your blocks. Now I want to expand the quilt border discussion in this post. I love to play with borders. They can be used for many purposes, including making a quilt larger. So, let’s have some fun!

Plain Borders

These are the easiest borders. It’s also the easiest way to enlarge a quilt to the size you want. You can either stick to one color print border, or you can do a few borders of varied widths in different colors. Here’s one of my quilts with just one plain border. 

I chose a dark color print border for this quilt to draw your eye to the pieced blocks. This is an example of where the border serves as a “frame” for your quilt, like frames for photos. Below is an example of a quilt with more than one plain border:

I did the center red border inside and then the outer green border to play off the colors in the blocks and to also show another type of frame look. If you want to make this quilt bigger, you can add another red print border that is wider than the green border. I did something similar with this next quilt:

Another great use for plain borders is to provide a “canvas” for appliqué or so you can do a creative scalloped edge, which can’t be done with a pieced border. Here’s one of my quilts with a scalloped edge:

And here is one of my quilt where I used the outer plain border to showcase appliqué. 

Talk about adding personality! You can really have fun adding appliqué to a border and frame your quilt with a unique motif.

Combination Borders

I call borders that are made up of plain strips and pieced portions “combination borders”. Adding pieced borders can serve two purposes: to make your quilt larger and to use up the leftover fabrics from the quilt top. I like to create a fabric stash with leftover fabric, but I know there’s some quilters out there who like to use everything up. If that’s you… here’s one solution! Use the extra fabric to make a border like this piano key border on my quilt Scrappy North Stars:

I’ll share a secret…. often, you’ll see a quilt where the pieced border is preceded with a plain inner border strip. This is usually when the quilter needed a way to make the quilt top measure the size needed so the pieced border fits.

For example, if your quilt top measures 64″ square, that number can be divided by 2 or 4 evenly so you can add a pieced border made of of units that measure 2 or 4 inches. Note, these measurements I am using in this example are finished sizes. If the pieced border units you want to use on the quilt are 3 inches finished, those borders will not fit the 64 x 64″ quilt unless you can add a 1″ plain border to the quilt so it now measures 66″ square, which is divisible by 3. See how that works? Here is one of my quilts that demonstrates this:

I really wanted the pieced stars for a border on this quilt above but the only way to do that was to add a plain tan print border between the pieced quilt top center and the pieced star border. I also pieced the stars of the border with a small strip of fabric between them which also helped with the fit and look.

Yes… you do need to do a little math once in awhile when quilting. But when the finished quilt top has a magnificent pieced border to frame it, I think you will decide it was worth it.

Pieced Only Border

This option is also a fun way to finish a quilt. Like I mentioned above, this can only be done if the quilt top dimensions are divisible by the size of the pieced border units. Here’s one of my quilts where I was able to do this:

Since this is a bit more difficult to do unless your quilt measures perfectly, I usually do it on smaller quilts like wall hangings and table runners.

Now there is a way to do a pieced only border even if your quilt top is not divisible by a particular unit size… make it a completely crazy, scrappy border made up of different width units. I did this for my quilt here:

The photo on the right shows a close-up of the border so you can see how the pieces that make up this border are not uniform. This was a fun way to use up the leftover fabric from this quilt project.

Measuring the Quilt Top

After reading this post, you will notice that I mention knowing the size of your quilt top so you can decide on a border. Even if the pattern you are making gives you measurements for the border strips, this is a good step not to skip.  Here’s a brief explanation on how to do this.

  • 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:

So now you are ready to border that quilt! What do you like to do for borders? Share in the comments below and be in a drawing to win a copy of my quilt pattern Star Struck.

The drawing will be on Monday, January 16th. ***We have a winner! Congrats, Barb Jansz!***

Happy Quilting!
Deanne

Pieced Borders Add Personality!

Pieced borders have many benefits. They add some “personality” to the quilt. They make a quilt larger and they use up leftover fabric! If you’ve made a quilt that you really like, but you want it to be bigger, instead of adding rows and columns, add some borders! They also serve to frame the quilt also. Here’s an example of a combination of borders, plain and pieced that really add some personality.

This quilt, Scrappy North Stars has a really busy, scrappy center:

So, I added a plain black border, then used the leftover fabric from the blocks to make a piano key border.

That plain black border frames the inner blocks and the scrappy pieced outer border finishes it off.

This next example has 2 different pieced borders. When doing this, it’s a good idea to used borders with different size pieces. Notice the first inner border of flying geese is made up of large flying geese units. Then the outer border is a smaller checkerboard boarder. I feel like this adds a different dimensional look to the quilt.

I finished this one with the plain dark border as the last border to frame the whole quilt.

You can also pull an element out of the block in the quilt and turn that into a border. I used the outer square in a square edge of the block as the border separated by a plain tan strip. This gives the illusion that the quilt keeps going.

Here’s that quilt:

And here’s a closeup of the border:

The plain border strips between the quilt blocks and the pieced border can also serve another purpose other than a “frame”. If the center of your quilt measures an odd number yet you need an even number for your pieced border to work, you can add the width of plain border in a size that will do that. For example, if your quilt without the border measures 57 1/2″  x 57 1/2″, you can add a border with a width of 3″ to have your quilt top measure 60 1/2″ x 60 1/2″ once it’s attached.

Here’s a few other fun borders:

As you can see from the above photos, there are many ways you can use leftover fabric for borders.

Another fun use for a border is to create a subtle secondary design to draw a viewers eyes in another direction. Here’s my quilt, Homestead Trail. It has a simple scrappy block center with 9-patch cornerstones. I wanted to add an interesting element, so I built off those cornerstones to make a checkerboard design. I wanted the design to be subtle so I chose colors for the plain border and the checkerboards that were close in shade.

So that’s some of my binding tips and ideas! Since I did not have anyone post on my blog last week to enter into the drawing for the free pattern, I am going to extend the chance to enter to this week’s blog. The winner will receive my pattern, Country Dance. This one also has a fun, scrappy border!

Share your border tips and preferences and you will be entered in a drawing to win the above quilt pattern! Make sure to share your ideas in the comments below. *** Congrats to the winner, Jenedel Wilcox!***

Happy Quilting!
Deanne

I Like Scraps …. Do You?

I love scraps because …. I always have a lot of them! I don’t think many quilters are actually without scraps. When I cut out a project, I usually end up with basket by the side of my cutting table looking like this:

Yeah, this mess … it’s one part wanting to get to sewing my project and 3 parts laziness. I really need to sort out the strips. I usually sort them into containers based on whether they are a color print or a tan print and if they are a full width of fabric (40″) strip or just a piece of a strip. Here’s one of the bags I use to contain my strips:

So what can you do with all these leftover strips? I like to design patterns with log cabin blocks. 

And 1 1/2″ and 2 1/2″ strips are great to make a very scrappy log cabin quilt. I used mine to make a Courthouse Steps Log Cabin block (above). Of course you can also use them to make traditional Log Cabin blocks as well.

Another great use for leftover strips are pieced borders. Especially if you finish a project, have lots of fabric left over and you want to make it bigger. This example below is the piano key style strip border created by using 2 1/2″ strips.

Another option is to mix pieces cut from 2 1/2″ and 1 1/2″ strips to make a unique border.

Finally another use for my strips is to make scrappy binding. What a great way to use up the fabric from a project! And you do not have to buy additional fabric for a binding.

If it does not work to cut a leftover piece of fabric into strips, I separate those pieces by color and put them into bins to use in appliqué projects. Instead of having to cut into a larger piece of fabric for a small flower, I just dig into my appliqué bin of the appropriate color!
Here’s some of those bins:

 

Another way I put scraps to use is to use them to make test blocks. I make these when I am trying out color ideas for a block. Instead of cutting into “fresh” fabric, I dig through my scraps for colors I want to audition and make the block. I can even make two or three different variations. Once I have chosen the color combo I want, I can purchase the fabric and make the quilt with no worries. This is also a great idea because it familiarizes you with the pattern instructions before you tackle the whole project.

When you are done with the test blocks, you can add a few scrappy borders to it and have an instant mini quilt! They make great gifts! Here’s one I made a few years ago:

So do you want to try a scrap quilt and are not sure how to get started? Try a “planned” scrap quilt. Take a quilt pattern for a quilt made with one block make each block separately using different colors (but still coordinating). Another way to get scrappier is to do it while buying fabric. If a pattern calls for 1 yard of blue, consider buying 4 fat quarters in different blues or other colors in that color family. Do the same for the other colors in the pattern. You’ve instantly made it scrappier!

The key to enjoying scrap quilting is to let go and have fun! Buy smaller cuts of fabric in many colors from your local quilt shop instead of larger cuts of just one color. Once you build up a stash, it’s fun to go “shopping” there and experiment.

***Share with me your ideas on scraps! I’d love to hear from you. I’ll pick a winner from the comments to receive my scrappiest pattern, Scrappy North Stars!*** Winner will be chosen next week. ***We have a winner! Yvette Borden. Congrats!***

Fat quarter friendly scrappy stars lap quilt

Happy Quilting!
Deanne

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