Journey of a Quilt - Part 3 of Bonnie Blue Bear

Adding Borders

Before adding borders measure across the quilt in 3 different areas and take the average of the 3 measurements.  This will help keep your quilt square.  My 3 measurements differed by 1/2 inch so I definitely need to sew more carefully when making blocks with many pieces.  But I'm liking this quilt and it's not like I'm operating on someone's brain so I will press on and finish this quilt!

I mentioned last week that the bear paw block is more of an intermediate level block.  Below you can see the puffiness in the star that makes up the cornerstones in the sashing - argh!

puffy piecing - boo!

This quilt making journey has been frustrating, but I learn something with each quilt.  Like take your time when piecing all those half square triangles!  Next time maybe I'll square up each paw before combining them into a block.  And next time maybe I'll try adding my sashing as pieces of each block like this tutorial rather than making them one long strip.

Deciding on the tiny border

After adding the 2" gray border, I felt like I needed something else to transition to the border fabric and tie it all together.  The blue and brown floral fabric was my starting point for this quilt.  My design board is super helpful when I'm testing out fabrics and border widths.  I felt like the darker blue meshed the indigos in the quilt top with the blues in the border fabric.

Ready for the outer borders

I really like how the star cornerstones in the sashing add a secondary design to the quilt.  The tiny blue border was cut at just 1" wide and the outer border will be large - about 5" wide.  Once I've added to outer borders, I'll be ready to figure out the backing.  See you next week!