Ribbon Quilt Border, Part II

Hope everyone enjoyed my week of spreading the BuyHandmade.org word and featuring some of my favorite Etsy artists. I’ll continue to feature one or two a week during the holiday buying season. Forget the mall. Shop Etsy! C’mon give it a try. You know you want to.

Back to the ribbon quilt border. This thing is going to make my head explode. It’s simple in theory. It’s quite complex in reality. This is how it’s supposed to go onto the quilt. The angle of the border at each corner should be slanting towards the center of the quilt. Two more triangles get sewn into a larger triangle that gets attached at the corners. Simple, right?

Well the simple factor got lost when I started with an improvised pattern. The courthouse steps pattern was devised based on the scale of the focus fabric. And I made the ribbons based solely on the size of the strips I had left over. What does that mean? My ribbons don’t fit nicely onto the length of the sides. So I have to fudge with some additional strips in the middle to compensate for the length. Add seam allowances, especially on triangles and you can see how the math becomes dizzying. You’re probably best off with a proper pattern that will make all these dimensions come out right for you. But I’m forging on. One side is pinned on and another is in process. Hopefully next week it will be ready for quilting.