I sat down at my machine to learn a quilting border I had seen. Somewhere along the way, my stitching took a different turn—and suddenly I had a braided border design that I really liked!
In the video below, I show you the design and stitch it so you can follow the movement. Watching the lines develop is much easier than trying to explain every turn in words.
I love a border that adds movement around a quilt, and this braided effect gives me another option when I want the border quilting to be part of the design. I’m looking forward to trying it on a quilt!
Have you ever been practicing one quilting design and ended up discovering another? Tell me what happened in the comments—I’d love to hear about your happy accident.
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Check out my new, ONLINE, ON-DEMAND Free-Motion Quilting Course
You begin with a plan. Then you press the foot pedal and start moving the quilt in every direction…except the one you intended.
But every wobble builds muscle memory and improves your control. Once the quilt is finished, those imperfect lines usually blend into the beautiful texture.
Keep quilting—and call the unexpected parts a custom design!
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Do you struggle to decide what to quilt in your blocks? If so, check out my FREE series…..
A quilt border doesn’t have to be an afterthought—it can be one more place to have fun with your quilting!
This rainbow border is cheerful, flowing, and easier to quilt than it may seem at first. In this video I’ll show you how I stitch the design and keep the rainbows moving smoothly across the border.
Don’t worry about making every rainbow exactly the same. Small differences give free-motion quilting its personality and make the finished border more interesting.
Give it a try on a practice sandwich first, and then add a little rainbow fun to your next quilt!
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Check out my new, ONLINE, ON-DEMAND Free-Motion Quilting Course
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??
