Why are my quilt borders wavy? Well, I don’t know every reason but I do know a couple that plays a big factor in that. How you attach your border fabric to your top can play a big factor.
Cutting your border fabric to the size specified in the pattern isn’t enough. You would think it is because if it fits it should be fine.
The problem with this is that the fabric isn’t paper. Fabric can be stretched and distorted. Unless you add your border to your top a certain way there is a chance that you will have a wave going all around your quilt top.
How do I avoid this? The first step is cutting your fabric to the size specified in your pattern. Woohoo! We have already been doing that one so that is done!
You will now fold your border in half to make a crease. Set this aside.
Now fold your quilt top in half and make a crease on the side where your border fabric should attach.
Line up the center creases for the quilt top and border fabric and pin it in place. Make sure that the right side of the fabrics is together.
Then pin each end of the border to your quilt top.
After this is done place as many pins as you need to keep the border fabric in place. Bring it to the sewing machine and sew your border to your top.
Set the seam of your stitches by placing your iron on the seam and keep it there for a couple of seconds. Do this to the entire length of your sewn seam.
I suggest finger-pressing your border to the side and then pressing with the iron. In my experience, I get a better result if I use my fingers to press first rather than the iron right away.
Repeat this with your remaining borders. Yah! You did it!
Not Following a Pattern?
Created your own quilt design so you aren’t sure about borders? But I want to add an extra border to my top that isn’t given in the quilt pattern. What do I do?
Sure! The first thing you are going to do is take three measurements from your quilt top.
You are adding a border to the top and bottom of your quilt top. Lay out your quilt top flat and measure horizontally across your quilt top parallel to your top edge. Write down this measurement. As an example, we will say that your top measures 24 3/4”.
Take another measurement horizontally through the center of your quilt top. Write this measurement down. Keeping up with this example it measures 24 1/2”.
Do this again to the bottom of your quilt top. The final measurement for this example is 24 3/4”.
Now, what do you do? You will take the average of these measurements and cut your border fabric accordingly. So the final cut for the border fabric in this example is 24 3/4”.
Repeat the steps for adding your borders to your quilt top from the previous instructions above.
If you want to add a left and right border to your quilt top. After you have added the top and bottom borders you will repeat the above steps taking measurements of your quilt top.
Do you want to make the Above Quilt Block?
This quilt block comes from the Lullaby Stars quilt pattern I have listed in my shop. If you would like to make the quilt just click the link below to get your copy.
Lullaby Stars Quilt PatternAt the beginning of my sewing experience, I would just cut the border fabric and attach it any old way. Sometimes my borders were a tad too big. Which meant I would cut the excess fabric off and think nothing of it.
Now that I know how to attach borders the above example hasn’t been my quilt experience. If you have had similar experiences give this a try and see how it turns out. If you like tips and tricks like this consider signing up for my newsletter below. If you have already signed up please share this with a friend so they can get these quilting tips and tricks.
