Tuning the border!!

Earlier this year, my friend Diane passed after a short battle with cancer. It was heartbreaking to lose such a creative soul and friend.

Diane was one of those women who rose early and I could be sure that she would post a comment on my blog just after it was published at 5:30 AM.

5:30 AM friends are always the best!!

At her memorial service, I was told that Diane had asked if I would finish the quilt that she had started. Of course, I was honored to be asked!!!

She was in the middle of a sampler quilt utilizing lots of fun fabrics. This was how it looked on her design wall…..

My first thought was to add the horizontal sashing…..

….but it needed something else!

Fortunately, Sue (another friend) had gone to Diane’s studio and gathered all of the fabrics that were used in the top and I had those stacked on my cutting table.

The more that I thought about it, I KNEW that I needed to do something to pull all of those fabrics into the border and a PIANO KEY border was the way to go!!

After putting a bunch of strips together, I realized that it was going to be too wide for the top….

It was drawing all of the attention to the border rather than the blocks.

So, I carefully cut down all of the strip sets to 2.50-inches!!

(The good thing is that now have a 2-inch Piano Key Border ready to go for a future quilt!!)

I found one of the blue fabrics that had enough yardage to add a final border and now the top is complete….

I always love a Piano Key Border and this one did exactly what I wanted it to!!!

The top now travels to another friend (Sheila) who is going to quilt it. It will return to me for binding and then we will enjoy presenting it to her husband and daughter.

I mean…..isn’t that what quilters do for each other??