Welcome to this week's installment of the Top 10 Tips for new quilters - Sashing & Borders. For the complete line up of weekly tips, please see this page. Sashing: The basic building block of a quilt is a quilt block. Some quilts look fabulous by simply piecing these blocks together. Some blocks even allow for a secondary design to shine through by placing them side by side. But some quilt blocks just seem to need a little separation to keep them from drowning each other out. Without Sashing: Using EQ7, I drew up this simple brick layout made from Spiderman fabric. Without sashing the bricks seem to blend together and look muddled. With Sashing: By adding thin sashing strips to separate the bricks, your eye is given a place to rest and the fabrics seem to benefit from the chance to stand out on their own. How do you put the short sashing onto your blocks? You can cut the individual sashing strips to the same size as the edges of your quilt blocks. Or you can try this Chain Sashing method by Bryan House Quilts. In this example, the blocks are offset in the second row. The sashing strips from the first row must line up with the butterfly bodies in the second row. Here is how I mark my long sashing strip to ensure that everything stays lined up..... For joining sashed rows, you need to match up the adjoining rows and align the seam lines. Use your acrylic ruler and a pencil to mark your long sashing strip. See those tiny pencil marks at the bottom of the sashing strip? Those are where the seam lines of your adjoining row will meet. Pin these rows at the matching points to secure before sewing. Sashing does not have to consist of plain straight strips. Looking for something with a little more pizazz? Try one of these suggestions! Wonky Sashing by Why Not Sew. Sashing with Simple Cornerstones. Once you are comfortable with that you may like to try dressing things up a little.... Sashing with strip sets and fancy cornerstones. This example shows strip sets for the sashing and 9 patches for the cornerstones. This example shows strip sets for the sashing and snowball blocks for the cornerstones. This effect gives each block it's own frame. Borders: Back when I designed my very first quilt, I had really no idea of how to make a quilt. I went searching in my local library. And stumbled upon Julie Herman's Skip The Borders. Through her display of beautiful quilts and helpful tips included in that book, I realized that when designing quilts it was a good thing to sometimes skip the borders. Some designs just look better without borders. Most 'modern' quilts are borderless. Some think that borders are for more traditional style quilts. But borders can offer a solution to a few of these quilting problems.... Size: If your quilt is just not quite big enough, adding borders or adjusting the size of the borders can allow you to make your quilt the size you want. https://www.flickr.com/photos/msavelsberg/8899302459/ Interest: Adding a border can add interest to your quilt. In this lovely sample, the white picket fence in the border ties into the white picket fence in the center medallion block. http://tamarackshack.blogspot.ca/2013/03/wild-rose-cottage-quilt.html An appliqued border is particularly pretty. This colourful appliqued border adds interest and ties all the colours from the 9 patch blocks together. http://www.quiltersclubofamerica.com/blogs/pamela_k/archive/2013/07/25/guild-raffle-quilt-top.aspx A pieced border can add an interesting visual effect. http://sewmeblog.blogspot.ca/2013/11/mystery-medallion-quilt-border-2.html A scrappy border will add interest and help you to use up the scraps from making the blocks. http://confessionsofafabricaddict.blogspot.ca/2014/06/150-in-5-day-4-100-good-wishes-quilts.html A plain border can help to tame a busy quilt. And gives your eyes a place to rest. http://www.maryquilts.com/new-churn-dash-stars/ Want to do a Mitered Multiple Border? This tutorial makes it easy! What are your thoughts on Sashing & Borders? Do you have any helpful tips or tricks to share? Leave a comment! Keep On Quilting On! To follow Sew Fresh Quilts by email.... Enter your email address: Delivered by FeedBurner

Want to try sashing a quilt? Get some inspiration for quilt sashing in this post and make your own now.

Here are a few designs to fill in narrow areas like sashings or narrow borders: After you chalk out the wavy stem line on your fabric... Challenge yourself to find different designs to add to the stem line... These get addicting! Try it The Lilies in the back yard are in full bloom: Pink Star Lily Yellow Spotted Star Lily They have freckles... More Lilies....yet to bloom! The back yard isn't only full of flowers... It is full of yearling cattle... They are 15 months old now... They are good company for us! Life in the Hay Field: This hay field is about 5 miles down the road from home These are 6 foot round hay bales... 700 pounds each The bales will be picked up with a tractor and loaded on a trailer and hauled for winter storage in our barns. A few more hay fields to go... 8:30 pm.....Sunset in the Hay Field CLICK HERE to view my Thread Shed CLICK HERE to view My Tutorials CLICK HERE to view my online Sketch Book CLICK HERE: to see My Quilts May Your Bobbin Always Be Full, LuAnn Kessi

Are you ready to add Sashing and Borders with Cornerstones to your Mystery Blocks? Lets finish off your quilt. Cornerstones are a new technique for us, and I think you are going to be pleasantly surprised at just how easy the are.

Skinny borders almost never need a whole lot of attention, but they can add a lot to the look of a quilt by quietly separating sections. That's why, even for skinny borders, it's important to make a quilting plan. PS This post is part of Quilt Your Own Adventure , where I am quilting m

Are you ready to add Sashing and Borders with Cornerstones to your Mystery Blocks? Lets finish off your quilt. Cornerstones are a new technique for us, and I think you are going to be pleasantly surprised at just how easy the are.

The Summer Storm Block of the Month takes you through a rainstorm in a forest as you make quilt blocks. Full tutorials.

So I have shared with you the overall quilt, the quilting on the pink logs and border. As well as the 12 of the 15 quilting fill patterns. Now do you want to know what I did in the red logs? It was…

Follow quilter Christine Baker as she explores flying geese in quilt blocks, sashing and borders to make a lap quilt

Learn how to add sashing and borders to a quilt

Want to try sashing a quilt? Get some inspiration for quilt sashing in this post and make your own now.

A brilliant day with friends last Saturday at the Grovesnor Shows' Spring Quilt Festival at Westpoint, near Exeter. Always a good show with lots of inspiring quilts and many quilt stalls. I have to start by showing you some quilts by Gilli Theokritoff as I liked so many of them. I think though that this one is my favourite. It is called "Klimt2" and these pics show details of the areas that I like the very best - ovals within ovals (raw edged with dense quilting) and squares within squares. Gilli's work is so varied - this is "Urban Folk Quilt" and these are three of the nine squares that made up ""Little Kanthas". The Kantha stitching is really effective. As usual the entries for the Journal Quilt (A4 size) challenge were interesting and thought provoking. This year the title was "Let's Dance". They were not easy to photograph and could have been displayed better. This pair are by Jane Adamson and won first prize - Spirit Hare's and Earth Hare's Tea Dance. The Light brown squares are actually empty tea bags! This pair are by Dawn Fenn and also won a rosette - Birds Do It / Bees Do It The birds are a murmuration of starlings and just look at the detail in the tiny bees!! These Dancing Shoes are by Shirley Matthews and immediately caught my eye. What a brilliant use of the stripey and dotty fabrics in the ladies shoes ...... I want some!! I also really liked the section on sashiko quilts. They were made by ladies who attended workshops by Susan Briscoe in Scotland. These two are by Pamela Lyall and Moira Gaw and I particularly like the colouring of these two by Maureen Arnott and Ruth Higham. Sashiko stitching is something I'm definitely going to have to try! Finally another beautiful quilt by Annelize Littlefair who's "Journey" quilt I loved so much at the Bristol Show. This one is called "Sea Urchins". All in all a thoroughly enjoyable day in good company. Happy Stitching - Anita x

I've had a few requests for a tutorial on how to do the Curved Echo border design. First I need to clarify that I did not create this design, Raylene Smith shared a pictures of one of her quilts on a quilting forum with this design in the borders. This is one of my favorite border designs and it is surprisingly simple to do. Here is a picture of Robins quilt, it was the first quilt I tried this design on. You will need a curved ruler, I don't think it matters what brand as long as it has 1/4" markings along the curve. I use Deloa's Boomerang rulers and what size you use depends on the width of the border and scale you want to create your design at. I will be give directions for quilting this design in the outside border. First you need to divide up the border into even sections and I like to make it simple and use the center of the sashing as my divisions. Yes the first and last curve sections will be a bit longer depending on the wide of the sashing but you really won't notice that in this design. If your quilt does not have sashing then measure the inner part of the outside border and divide that evenly. I have used between 9" to 18", it just depends on how wide of a border you have. Let's say the spacing between the yellow lines is 10". The blue line represent the center of the space and this indicates were to end the curve on the outside edge of the quilt. This will be 5" offset from the yellow marking against the inner border. I like to mark these blue reference lines with chalk on my border. Next I like to chalk on the main 'Zigzag' of the design using my curved ruler. This is seen by the curved yellow line. At the corners you just take the curve to the outside corner even if the spacing is not the same it doesn't really matter. This is one of the great things about this design is it works so well around corners! Once the zigzag line is marked it's time to quilt it using your curved ruler. Once the zigzag is quilted I then fill in the echos and like to use 1" spacing. Here is a sketch of the same information I drew on the picture above but the curves are drawn the other direction. This is to show you it doesn't matter which way you start to draw your curves just continue this pattern around the whole quilt. Here is a sketch of the stitch path. I backtrack along the main zigzag, seam line or outside edge so no need for stopping and starting. You can just travel in the seam lines or outside edge to get to the next curve section. I took this set of pictures when I was working on my Mystery quilt. I wasn't too happy with the quality of these pictures but they show a good example of longer curves, I believe they had an 18" repeat. Picture of the ruler when stitching the zigzag. I use the lines on the ruler as my guide to create the 1" spacing between the echos. Here are the curved echoes chalked in to show you the backtracks and the finished border. I find this design has the best impact when stitched on solid or tone on tone fabrics. Also I would avoid variegated threads with this design because of the backtracks.

Learn more about quilting with your walking foot during my "31 Days of Walking Foot Quilting" series.

LuAnn Kessi

This video discusses the problematic process of how to make a quilt border. Learn how to measure and cut properly with these helpful tips.

A blog about the Exploration of Quilting and Design

Using a walking foot is the easiest and quickest way to quilt borders. Continue reading for 7 easy border quilting ideas using a walking foot.

Mix lower angles and smaller teardrops and you have a totally different look for your wishbone. For me, the wider I space the teardrops apart, the more difficult it is to maintain an equal spacing.…

The BERNINA Clamshell ruler is great for filling sashing and borders. Learn how to easily switch the ruler orientation for a unique look.

I made a quilt top a few weeks ago and had a ton of quilters ask me how I made my mitered corners in my sashing. I figured I would make a video so all those wonderful quilters could see how simple it really is. The things that you will need is a ruler, 1/4 inch sewing machine foot (or a mark on your machine), a washable fabric pen, and scissors. To get started cut your strips but make sure to add the extra on both ends. I explain the math in the video, so watch it and you will understand. Another way, is to cut the sashing, sew them together in one long line and then just sew it on, and cut it when you come to the end of each side. Please feel free to share this video, and link back here. Leave a comment and spread the word!! Thanks For Watching, Sarah

THE ULTIMATE QUILT CALCULATOR APP

Like-new copy of "Quiltmaking Essentials 2: Settings and Borders, Backing and Bindings" by Donna Lynn Thomas. 64 pages. Detailed, full-color instructions on quilt settings, sashing, borders, backings, and binding guide you through the quilt finishing process.

Jazzing up a bowl cozy with embroidery adds warmth to your meal. See how it’s done using the Brother Luminaire XP1 Upgrade Kit (Premium Pack II)!! Easy and beautiful!

Here's a chart for you to copy if you want a listing of quilt border sizes that are perfectly proportioned. You can mix and match these standard sizes as you like to add multiple borders to your quilt. I've made the values quilt-ruler-friendly, so you're not messing around with too-strange fractions. It doesn't matter if you cut this size or if you add seam allowances, as long as you do the same thing for all borders. This is based on the Fibonacci series of numbers, which actually goes like this: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, ... (Hint for those of us who use the metric system - take this series above, but use centimeters instead of inches.) If you strictly follow the series and use 2 one inch borders, make sure they have nice contrast. I personally prefer a half-inch or quarter-inch piping instead of two one inch borders most of the time. I broke the true Fibonacci sequence to add values that would be good for piping, 0.25 inch and 0.5 inch. Based on the other border sizes you choose, you may like the larger piping better. Just right-click to save the image below for your own use.

This may be the quickest quilt youve ever seen.

I am delighted to have Patsy Thompson as our December FMQ Expert, for the 2012 Free Motion Quilting Challenge. Whe...