Saturday, May 29, 2010

"Partial Seaming" for an Appliqued Border

Alex Anderson sent me her quilt top that will be published in the December 2010 issue of The Quilt Life magazine. So I'm not going to show you much of it now -- you'll have to see it when the magazine arrives in your mailbox!

Along with the top, which is both pieced and appliqued, she sent me four appliqued borders to be attached to the top. The problem was that each border had a distinctive start and end so that the borders could not be put on in a normal (i.e., straight or mitered) manner.

Partial seaming was the solution.....


First, I measured the width of the border, which was 6-1/2" cut, then the width of the quilt top. Adding 6" (6-1/2" minus two 1/4" seam allowances) to the width of the top gave me the length measurement for the border. I cut the border, then pinned it to the quilt top, leaving unattached the top 6-1/4" of the border. This will be sewn last when the partial seaming is complete.


I took the quilt top to the sewing machine and sewed the bottom few inches of the border to the quilt top and left the remainder of the seam pinned.



Then I pressed just the sewn part of the seam toward the border.



Then I was able to rotate the quilt top 90 degrees, measure across the center in the next direction, cut the second border strip to that measurement, then pin and sew the second border strip to the top. When doing partial seaming, you are going around the quilt rather than sewing on opposite borders as in more frequently found border treatments.



After the second, third and fourth border strips were put on in this same manner, I was able to complete the pinned first seam for a good example of "partial seaming".

On to the quilting....


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