Thursday, January 28, 2016

Allietare Borders

What do you do when a quilt is not large enough for it's intended purpose? I am not happy to just continue to add strips around the outer border, or one huge border, so I usually try to come up with a pieced border to add interest and avoid that "it wasn't big enough" look!
The Allietare top is only about 72" x 86" before borders and it needs to be about 100-102 to just clear the floor on either side of a queen size bed, requiring an additional 30".
After some deliberation on this quandary here is my solution;
 1.5" stop border
 4.5" piano key strip
1.5 " strip
 then the planned 5.5" border
and a final 2" strip!
That's an extra 15" on each side, additional 30" total to the quilt both vertical and horizontal. Finished the top would be 102"x 116" adding sufficient for a pillow tuck and eliminating the need for shams- in my experience guys do not like to mess with extra pillows on their beds!
Here is how it might look…..
Or maybe like this? 
Though to me this version is a bit too bright, too much gold?
What do you think? What would you have done to make it large enough?
Linking up with Heather over at "Needlework Tuesday".

1 comment:

Heather said...

I like the first option with the two narrow blue borders. I like your idea of adding an interesting border/borders rather than a wide expanse of one fabric. I try and pick a motif from the quilt and add it to the border, keep the feeling the same. I think that piano keys almost always look good.

Since I do my quilting on a domestic machine, I wouldn't be making a quilt this large, too hard to finish. I like my quilts a bit larger than the top of the bed. I find that if they are really large, the weight of the quilt tends to pull it off the bed anyway. I have one that is 100x100 and it's too big for our queen size bed. We have posts in the corners and the quilt just gets bunched up.

Thanks for linking up with Needlework Tuesday.