Hello, I have finally uploaded a picture of the Baby Boston Commons quilt I finished recently - go to
-- Jo in Scotland
I would guess that the quilting design you did on the border was just enough to 'shrink' up the quilt in some areas a little more than others. When you are quilting, the quilt actually shrinks, how much it shirnks depends on how heavy the stitching or the design is. Your design is just slightly heavier in some areas than it is in others. It could be a combination of that and the batting you used too, was the batting a fairly high loft?
G'day Jo! Lovely quilt. One possible cause is that the borders may not have been measured and cut accurately before attaching. The centre panel needs to be squared off and measured first. Sometimes I get lazy and just sew a strip border on without measuring and just cutting when I get to the corner each side. Invariably this gives a distorted border. Quilting then makes it worse. Does that make sense? Hugs Bronnie
Beautiful quilting, absolutely gorgeous!!!!
And some really, really cute babies too!
Judie
Johanna Gibs> Hello,
I don't know the answer to your wavy borders, but I sure do like the quilt! Boston Commons is one of my favorites.
I haven't a clue as to why the borders are wavy, Jo, but it's a lovely quilt. Nice job! BTW, Sasha is a twin to my Dora. Looks like Sasha is just as sweet-natured as Dora, too.
Great quilt! Somebody is going to be very lucky to receive it! About the borders......one thought is that since the quilt is "on point" the sides (before borders) are all bias edges and they can stretch terribly when the borders are added if not basted first. Also, someone mentioned something about just sewing on the border strips without measuring first and then trimming off. This will definitely make wavy borders. Not sure how you assembled yours...........
To be honest, it really isn't that wavy and surely doesn't look bad at all! Good job!
Laurie G. in CA
My first thought was that the 'common area' is bias and could have been pulled out of shape - measuring for the borders should have been through the centre of the quilt and not along the bias edges - the border strips marked at the halfway point - pinned to the centre point of the quilt edge then the quilt worked to fit - stitched with the quilt on the bottom to ease in the bias. My second thought was that more quilting is needed to even out the bias section and the small plain area before the motif quilting. This could still be done even though the binding is attached. jennellh (change the mail to news)
Johanna Gibs> Hello,
I really like that quilt, Jo, and I don't think the borders are terribly wavy. If it bothers you, though, would more quilting in the borders take up some of the excess and make the borders lie flatter?
Lovely quilt - it's so warm looking. Your stash cupboard amazes me - what a neat person you are .... wanna come over and rearrange my stuff for me? :-))
Sharon (N.B.)
Very nice Johanna. I love the on point simplicity of the quilt.
I suspect that some of those bias edges on your quilt top stretched before you added the borders or while you were adding the borders. You say you don't want that to happen again but I suspect that it does more than we know. I saw Alex Anderson on Simply Quilts demonstrating how to block a quilt. She dampened her quilt and fiercely stretched and pinned it on a flat surface until it was behaving nicely. Then she allowed it to dry. I don't know if Sasha would permit such a venture or if the waves matter enough to bother. Jo, it is just such a lovely, wonderful quilt. I enjoy seeing it. If you ever get into the 'on point' blocks again, perhaps you'd better get very serious about starching your fabrics. I haven't tried starch but see it recommended often enough to think it would be worth a try. Hugs to the kitty. Polly
I've only just managed to get to see your quilt, Jo. Those on point squares look lovely - and the colours are very pretty. Now, did you mean wavy borders or wavy edges being the most problem? I assume you measured across the centres for the borders? In which case, it must be the binding which concerns you. You have done the mitred corner style, which means that it is very difficult to measure how much binding length you need. The quilting you have done within the border will mean that you have a very curvy edge to it. You can handle this two ways (either or both). Once you have squared and trimmed, you can zig-zag stitch all the way round the quilt, just less than the width of your binding: so 3/8" if you are doing a half inch binding. This will give you a straight edge again, which the quilting 'took'. OR/also you should apply the binding strip with slight tension on the strip in relation to the border. You can do this as you feed it through the machine once you get the hang of it, pin it at first perhaps. Don't pull it too tight, though, or you won't get square corners! There's always something isn't there! . In message , Johanna Gibson writes
One thing that I've found helps prevent wavy borders is to machine-stitch close to the edge of the quilt before sewing on the binding. It helps keep the edges from stretching when you sew on the binding. I use my walking foot for sewing the binding to the top. That also helps. Another thing you can do is to apply a tiny bit of tension to the binding strip as you sew it on.
Julia > Hello,
Lots of people have problems with wavy borders. :)
First, make sure the quilt isn't wavy before the borders are attached. Careful pressing as you go is the best way to do this. I give it a final check on a flat surface (large table, tile floor) before the borders go on. I'd rather know sooner than later.
When applying the borders, always measure them before sewing. I lay the quilt out, lay the border out next to it, and cut the right length. (I've tried measuring with a tape measure, but one time I got 68 and 86 mixed up. Ooops! I do the visual measuring now.) Make sure that both are laying flat and neither is stretched out.
I'm often too lazy to pin, but I always pin my borders. I'd hate to have all that careful measuring get ruined because something stretched while sewing. Give it all a careful press, and check again on a flat surface to make sure nothing got stretched while pressing.
Assuming that you didn't introduce any waves while basting the quilt, you can go on to quilting. If the quilt is basted close enough together, stabilized where appropriate (stitch-in-the-ditch, etc.), and the quilting density is distributed evenly, you shouldn't get major waviness in the quilting. My personal quilts get blocked with steam on a tile floor after quilting to eliminate the last bits of waviness.
Yeah, I do a bit more than most quilters to get quilts to lay flat. If you had to pick just ONE of these things to do, I'd say choose measuring the borders. I had one piecer bring in an otherwise show-quality quilt who asked me to redo her borders before I quilted it -- when I took them off and measured, she'd gotten an extra 5" of fabric length in each border on an 80" quilt. And I've seen wavier. Ouch!
HTH!
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