Scrappy Quilt Borders

I love trying out new ideas for quilt borders and recently I made a french braid quilt which gave me an idea for a quilt border that could use up lots of odds and ends of scrap fabric.

I cut piles of strips of fabric 3.1/2" by 2" and another pile of red 2" squares.  This makes quite a wide border, but you could always adjust the length of the strips if you wanted a thinner border.

With the red squares in the middle I laid out all the strips of fabric on either side.  I began by putting two strips of the same fabric next to each other but then decided that I preferred the random look.

I began by sewing the brown strip to the red square and then sewed the green strip to both of these.  That's the base so then it's just a case of building from there.  The cream strip goes next on the left hand side and then a red square with another strip on the right hand side.

Once I had the length that I needed it was just a case of pressing well before trimming.

I trimmed the top and bottom first and then the sides.  The safest way to trim the sides is to place your ruler on the strip so that you can cut a definite amount from each side.  Otherwise you risk having your border strip an uneven width.



My work in progress right now is a tutorial for quilting rope borders.  In order to keep the process simple I seem to have lots of diagrams showing each stage - templates would be so much easier except that they are never the right size!

Linking up with freshly pieced as ever:



Thanks for visiting my blog.
I hope to see you again soon.
Rose