Sashing and Borders- Quick as a Fox Quilt Along

Sashing and Borders

Welcome everyone to the Quick as a Fox Quilt Along!  If you are just finding this for the first time, you can find all the previous blocks here and the photo gallery here.

Today we will be working on putting our quilt center together. We will be going over sashings and borders and how they tie our quilt blocks together.

Jumping right in- sashing.  What is a sashing? Well, for a quilt it is the little trip that goes in between the quilt blocks.  There are times when these need to be spaced apart and separated because they are- too busy, the size of the blocks don’t match, you need the quilt larger, to take over the design with a whole new design, a place for the eyes to rest…..they are kind of important.  In this Quick as a Fox Quilt Along, I decided not to add any sashings in between the quilt blocks.  They weren’t crazy busy.  They were a pretty perfect size when sewn together, and there was enough background that I didn’t really want to add any more resting space.

Even though I didn’t add them in my quilt, I wanted to mention a few options with sashings.  They really can be a simple thing-

a strip around the whole quilt block…. or a strip in between with a different fabric in the corners.

  

Add a bit more interest and go with a second pattern- how about 4 patch in the corners

you could even throw the quilt blocks totally off and do a half square triangle, but when put all together, they make their own friendship star.

You can really do a lot with sashings {or not}.  Play around with some of your fabric when you get to this point and audition some options. Look around the internet and find out what layouts that catch your eye.  What did they do in the sashings?

Borders– they are usually added to give the eye a place to rest.  Quilt blocks are busy, and your eye is traveling around everywhere.  There needs to be a place on your quilt where your eyes take a little rest.  This is where the borders come in.  They can be any size, and you can have as many as you like. Usually there is a first border or a stop border {where your eyes stop} and then a larger border showcasing the fabric.  Borders can also be made up of pieced blocks.  Again it’s kind of like the sashing- what is your purpose for the border? What kind of style or look or design are you going for?  This will determine the border or borders and what fabric or blocks you will sew with.

In the Quick as a fox quilt along, the first border is made with the background fabric.  That way the quilt blocks are visually larger and keeps the busy second border away from the busy quilt blocks.  I kept it simple {this is for a beginner sewer} so there is nothing fancy.  Just a place for the blocks to get some spacing and the eye to rest.

The second border is a pieced border.  I had used fat quarters for the quilt blocks and had a bunch of random sized pieces left over. I wanted to use as much as possible of the fabric so I cut them into the same size of strips– sewing those together, they made up the outer border.  If you have a piece of fabric that you would like to showcase on your quilt/border, then that will work fine too.   This second border can handle being a little busy because it is competing with the quilt block center for attention.

Let’s get back to our layout–

Lay the quilt blocks out and move them around until you like the layout the best.  I chose to put the quilt blocks with the most background in the four corners and in the center.  That’s what I found the most pleasing, but feel free to move them around to what you like the best.

Sew the blocks into 3 sets of 3 blocks. Then sew the sets or rows together to form a new quilt top!

Cut 2 strips- background 37 1/2″X 2″

Cut 2 strips- background 39″ X 2″

Sew these strips to the sides and then top and bottom of the quilt blocks or new quilt top center.

Outer Border:

Cut leftover scraps of fabric from the quilt blocks into 4″ strips x random lengths. {your scraps might determine how long the strips are} Sew these strips into long strips.

Measure and cut:

2 strips- 4″ X 39″

2 strips- 4″ X 46″

Sew these strips to all four sides of the quilt.

Want to sew along with us? Find all Previous Blocks and Instructions for the Quilt Along Quick as a Fox

To help us all connect and find inspiration from one another, there is a flickr photo gallery group-  Share your progress, choices, and finished blocks there.  If there is anything I know about quilters and sewists, it’s that we are very visual people.  So, please share it so we can all see it.

The next post– Quilting and Binding! See you next Tuesday.

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