Are you ready to finish your exquisitely pieced quilt top at last? Here’s how to fit the right border to give your creations the perfect final touch. Easy border stencils can make your work so much simpler, and you need to keep just a few tips in mind for those perfect borders. Quilt borders give them a lot of interest, can bring out specific colors from the quilt's center, and can give them a finished look.

Tips For Better Borders

The key to precise borders is to start with correctly cut strips, whether your quilt pattern calls for 2 1/2′′ or 5 1/2′′ border strips. Use a straight seam to stitch the border strips together. Sew straight–by sewing diagonally, you inject bias into the quilt's border, frequently producing an unwelcome wavy border feature.

Your quilt border strips should be measured and cut carefully before stitching. Don't trim the border strip–once both ends are pinned, continue to pin every 8 to 10 inches until the entire border strip is fastened.

Always start sewing a border with a brand-new bobbin. It will prevent you from having to do a lot of re-stitching because you won't run out of thread anywhere along the way!

You might need to press seams open if your border is pieced in order to get the border area to measure the right length. Seams that are forced to one side take up a surprising amount of "space," and if there are a lot of them, the border section's final measurement may be impacted.

Additionally, you can reduce the length of pieced border areas without changing the design by taking a few slightly bigger seam allowances than necessary.

When attaching border portions, backstitch at the beginning and end of the seam. Before the next portion is added or before quilting, it prevents border sections from unintentionally coming apart.

Adding Colors To The Borders

A quilt's entire color scheme can be altered by the color of the border. The quilt center will undoubtedly have more of the colors utilized in border design. Choose a color that requires extra attention or is one of your favorites. Before adding extra borders, you may occasionally want to add a background break border. Other times, though, only the background break border is sufficient, with the binding serving as the quilt's frame.

Use fabrics from the same line or the hues indicated in the border print. Having said that, the final quilt can be kept from feeling too monotonous by using a surprise color or fabric that is not from the same line somewhere in the quilt.

To find quilting stencils for borders**,** visit the Full Line Stencil website.

Author’s Bio: The author is an avid blogger and the article is about designing quilt borders.