Needing to make my latest bed quilt larger I’ve added some extra borders and decided to make pieced rather than solid borders. Naturally Seminole Patchwork is one of these  extra borders.

I added a half 4-block at either end of the side strips to make them the correct length. And after attaching the top border I didn’t like the finished look.

So I had to come up with a better idea and I’ve settled on a single block at either end of the strip.

- Thus a design element was born! (At least that what Ive deceided to call it when Pland ‘A’ doesnt work and I have to come up with a Plan ‘B’).

There's always time to quilt!

I am now working at finishing a quilt for our guest room.  The piecing is finished – and now I am adding the borders.  I decided that I wanted to add pieced borders along with the straight borders in the pattern.  The patchwork in pieced borders can be very simple (blocks) to more  intricate (Seminole Patchwork) designs.  I’m using both for this quilt.

The first border is spaced squares from the EQ5 library

and the third border will be Seminole Patchwork.

I am constructing this border from strips left over from the strip-pieced blocks in the quilt – a true Seminole Border construction technique.  If you’ve been following my posts, you know that Seminole women developed this patchwork technique to use up fabric left over after clothes construction.  Nothing was wasted.  The patchwork embellished the clothing they made.

Of course I used my Shape Cut ruler to quickly cut the pieced strips into 1-1/2 inch units.  A demonstration video for using the ruler can be found on  June Taylor’s website.

To make sure  that the borders lie flat, I always cut the borders with the straight of grain for wall hangings.  When making a bed quilt, I find that using the crosswise grain works well as long as I measure the quilt in the middle and not on the sides. (Adding Borders at Quilt Qua).

There’s always time to quilt!