banish the ruffle!

ruffles, my friends, are for dresses.

or shirts.

or coats...

heck, you can put them on unders, socks, hats...

but they are not...i repeat...NOT for quilts.

well...okay...i've seen ruffles used in quilts.

but no longarm quilter will ever have a happy word for borders that ruffle.

they are a serious pain in the a...

right.

so here's the deal.

even if your quilts aren't perfectly straight there is a very simple way to banish those ruffles from your quilt borders.

1)  cut all your border strips.

2) sew them together.

i prefer diagonal when joining pieces but straight seams work too.

3) measure the long seam NEXT to the raw edge you will be sewing the border to.

see mine?

it says 72".

4)  measure border strip and cut to that number.

usually i put a pin in the border strip marking the number.

then i take it to my cutting mat and cut it right there.

5)  pin the border to the raw edge that it matches.

pin the outsides first, then the middle, then the quarters and, finally, the eighths.

6)  sew border to body of the quilt.

7)  fold the border fabric over and press.

no need to press border seams open.

quilts with borders that don't ruffle are easy to quilt on a longarm.

they stay square (no angel wings) and there's no tucks.

(note: the inside white border is the one i was demonstrating.  it can barely be seen in these photos!  the outside border is a striped material and i did miter that border.  so, one is square and one is not!)

here's a pdf that you are more than welcome to download.

Applying Borders ~ Banish the Ruffle

have a lovely weekend!

~ h