Today I have a quick and easy tutorial that you can apply to almost any quilt! I want to talk about how to piece your borders on an angle. While this might be old news to some of you, others may be asking

how to piece those borders without drawing attention to the join. Lucky for those others, I have your answers and it takes only a second longer than piecing it straight.

Why does this matter?

When joining two pieces of fabric, especially on a long border, a seam cutting it in half catches your eye’s attention, while piecing it on the diagonal leads your eye up (or down) the border. We don’t want our borders to be distractions, but frames for our beautiful work!

Supplies Needed

I love tutorials that require almost no new supplies, and this is one of them! Grab:

Cut Fabric Borders (The Meadow Toss print from my Bee Haven Collection makes a great border print!)
Pencil
1-2 pins
Sewing Machine
Rotary Cutter and Ruler
Self Healing Cutting Mat
Iron

How-To

First, grab two border pieces and lay them on your cutting mat. Place one RIGHT side up horizontally and one WRONG side up, vertically. The two pieces should make and upside down L shape, meeting at the corner.

Next, line up your acrylic ruler across the corner, with each end of the ruler landing in the valley created by the overlapping fabrics. With a pencil or erasable fabric marker, draw a line along the edge of the ruler. Pin to secure.

Take your pinned border pieces to the sewing machine. Put your needle down THROUGH the drawn line and stitch on it from end to end.

Back at the cutting table, lay your border pieces flat. Using the drawn/sewn line as your mark, trim off the corner triangle, leaving 1/4″ seam. Press to one side.

I like to do this with all of my border pieces, creating one long strip. Then I’ll cut my border pieces to size and the seams will fall randomly throughout the quilt. So, repeat these steps to join all of your border pieces!

Give it a Try!

My new line, Bee Haven is shipping soon! It’s the perfect fabric to try out this new technique on. You can learn more about the line, see coordinating patterns, and order by clicking below:

Check out Bee Haven