Patchwork border math
 

Im doing a patchwork border to make a crib sized top into a throw sized blanket. I knew there would be some places where my square sizes didnt match with my quilt width so I stitched corner pieces and put the gap in the center. When I went to find out the extra space the sides measured perfectly, but the top and bottom gaps are an inch different. Im sure this is because my patchwork is just a bit tighter stitched on the top side. I know I've got a few wavty seams in there.

How is best to handle this?

• Cut to the gap size and let it be a bit uneven?
• Split the difference
• Use the larger size
• Something I haven't even thought of

Thanks!

I'm not sure if I'm quite following what the issue is.

You have two sides that are correct/the same, and two sides that aren't. Is the quilt square or rectangular? How big is it, it's one thing fitting in an inch over 60 inches, and another thing over 36... You might be able to put a simple gather stitch in (or use lots of pins) to take up extra fabric, obviously if the problem is not enough fabric you would have to do it differently.

One of the things we do when things aren't going together perfectly is to frame the fabric in some way, so you have the appearance of consistency/squareness for the finished project. So you put on an inner border to make the sizes consistent and make your math work out. Your eye won't notice so much if the top is slightly skewed, and your final border should carry the design. Bonnie Hunter uses a narrow inner border a lot to change the math from the body of a quilt set on point, to a border set straight.

On my latest Bonnie Hunter project, I was using my newish machine and my seam allowances are way too scant. I had an extra 2" I think by the time I was done. Lucky for me, I was also scant on my border units and it all went together super easy just by luck and chance.

Or, here's the good enough side of things. For years I didn't really care so much if my tops were slightly out of square -- the only time you notice it is when you try to fold it. I would put my sides on "as built", to the fit of my final project. OK, so I find I like my results better if I square them up so now I do measure and cut both sides the same, and the top and bottom the same and fit in the top to those measurements. It being out of square does not keep me awake at night, so long as I am warm enough to sleep!

If I followed you correctly - the two side borders match?

And the top wnd bottom borders are off by an inch?

I think I would make the borders match (be the same size) - so they look the same -
then distribute extra length evenly - and then ease itt in.

I think most people would not notice a half inch of extra fabric distributed over a 36 inch or longer span.

One of the things I do when I'm attaching borders to blocks: if my blocks are all supposed to be finished at 12 inches and my sashings are supposed to finish at two inches - I mark those intervals on the border before attaching l also give myself some extra length on lthe border length - it's easier to trim off 1/2 inch than to be short that amount.

marking the border pieces before attaching them has sometimes alerted me to the fact that my blocks arent always as consistenttly sized as i thought they were.it also let's me know where I might need to do a bit of easing/stretching to give the illusion of consistency.

Perhaps a visual will help. This is just a pic I took to verify general layout so pardon the wonky pinning. I took it off the wall and got an accurate pinning to get my measurements and adjusted and double checked.

The puple border the patchwork is attaching to is 41 across the top. The center gap is 6 inches on top and 5 inches on bottom. The sides will have 4" rectangles in the center section to make up thier gap. I was thinking 1 block and smashing to fill the gap.on the top and make it feel intentional. Now that Im typing this our Im realizing that another checkerboard section would be 6" so thats an option if it won't look to weird just having odd blocks on the sides.

https://www.quiltingboard.com/member...654-624884.jpg

If I understand your top and bottom borders are too long, I would leave the ends alone to line up with the sides and then make a slightly wider seam on several of the other blocks to get the fit.
if it is too short, I would add a block and then do the same.

Picture does help so much! I think anyway...

So it looks to me like you need an extra square(s) in your center gap. I would use a full sized square even if that is a little big. You can fit in the extra, or take up just a little more in a seam or two -- maybe just fixing a wavy seam would do it.

It looks like adding in the center won't affect your light/dark combos and will actually make them work a bit better. It isn't so noticeable in scrappy but when we are doing two-color checkerboard borders, we like to have the light/dark march around the edges. Depending on your measurements, that might mean that the borders themselves are very slightly different. That is, one side may start with dark square with a light in order to get that marching and no dark/dark or light/light combos.

My other thought is that you can put in a piece of background and use it for your label. A little unusual placement but an outside-the-box solution. Honestly though, I don't usually label my projects and never do my donation projects.

Edit/PS: Look at you getting pictures to load! Grats on that :)

Oh, my goodness, your brain is stuck on thinking of 4-squares sewed together as being a block (which it is), but your brain is not recognizing that ultimately what you have is a bunch of squares sewed together. Sew pairs of squares together and sew them into the gaps. When I refer to a "pair of squares", I mean one square against the quilt and the other go the outside. If you find your gap measurement is something slightly different than the measurement of 2, 3, or 4 pairs of squares, then it's math time. You can make one or two pairs of squares slightly larger or slightly smaller than the others and the eye won't notice. For example, if you are using 2" finished squares (2.5" cut) and you need to fill in 6" of space - well, that's three pairs of squares. But, if your gap size is 5", then you will need to trim the pair of squares width. You will need 1" less, which could be 1/2" from two pairs or 1/4" from four pairs. I'd be tempted to do the 1/4" trim and spread it out, taking 1/4" from pairs separated by a couple of full-sized pairs. Be scant when trimming because you don't want to take off too much and in the end you can always sew a deeper seam to make things fit. I might even be tempted to trim with width of more than four, just a tiny bit like 1/8". It would be negligible.