Border Worries

I can't believe how much trouble I've had with the border of the Doll Quilt 2 Swap quilt! Normally I have a pretty good idea what I'll do for a border, and usually it works out most of the time with no real dramas. But this one... First I auditioned about 30 % of my Repro fabrics (which is a significant number I'll tell you), and when I finally decided after a couple of days of looking at this, leaving the room, looking at that, leaving the room and coming back to it I finally decided.

Then the real trouble started. I think the main problem is that I made the central part of the quilt square. I didn't really think it through, just made it up as I went along, and then had to stop because of the size constraints. I should've put one extra row on the top to give it a better shape. Anyway, too late for that, so I thought I'd do what I see on many doll quilts, and add an extra strip of fabric on the top and bottom before I put the borders on. I cut it out, laid it out - it looked terrible. I tried a diffferent fabric for the extra bit, and off it started again.

In the end I got a bit fed up with it, and trimmed down the side borders, didn't add the top and bottom borders, and I think I'm ok with it now. Talk about fiddly! I suppose I'm used to the proportions of the big quilts, and it took quite some time to down scale it all in my head. I'm pretty happy with it now after leaving it alone for a few days, and I have cut the single thickness binding in the spot so hopefully that will give it a lift.

It's a bit hard to see in the photo, but there is a sort of 'self inner border' with the dark triangles, so framing it with a skinny border might've helped on another quilt, but I didn't want to take away from that look. So now to put it together, bind it and it will be done. It has been good to do - it has taken quite a bit of work for a tiny quilt, but because it is small it has been do-able. I think I will definately make some more Doll Quilts. The swap invited you to try something different, and I have to tell you that this is the first quilt I've made on point! The 4patch UFO will be on point, but as that isn't finished...

Weather is lovely and cold here with westerly winds, but the sun is shining. We had 4 inches of rain last week and on Thursday I did the big run over to the Mainland with the Van and came back with some huge bags of dogfood, fertiliser and firewood stacked to the ceiling. I had better go and get the last bit out.