Improv Borders

I can tell that borders of this quilt are going to be one of my favorite elements!I decided on my “recipe” for the improv borders to be as follows:

• Fabric choices were limited to 5 fabrics: violet solid, periwinkle solid, purple/aqua marble, periwinkle marble, and raspberry purple mottled print.
• Starting size of cut strips: 1 1/4″, 1 1/2″ and 2″
• Pieced into border sections 5″ wide

This left me a lot of leeway as to what it would look like.

Initially I was going for a “calmer” border to offset the electricity from the piecing and color choices for the center.  Normally, I would put a plain 7″ border around the crazy thing to frame it up nicely – or maybe short strips perpendicular to the center.

No no.  Got to keep the improv thing going and push it a little more . . .

I ended up with borders that look like this:

**yawn**

OK. No.  Too blocky, too boring, too **yeech.**

What if I cut them up a bit?

Then what if I switched them around a bit and resewed them?Add a few more small strips, turn a few end on end or at right angles or put them in different locations.

Voila!  A far more interesting border!

So fun!  And it keeps with the energy level of the rest of the quilt!

Full disclosure: there are a few slightly tortured sections where the pieces got REALLY teensy.  I just kept cutting and resewing and cutting and resewing . . . well, you get the idea.

But now looky! This is two borders laid side to side – there’s a lot going on so I’m glad that there are solid colored fabrics to keep it under control a little.

Back to the machine – I can hardly wait!  (And isn’t that what it’s all about?)

All the best – Chris