Courting Sew Along Week 4

​Hi everyone, and welcome to the last week of our Courting Sew Along.

I have decided to keep the giveaway open for another week, because I know there are a few people who only joined in with the Sew Along in this past week! I thought I would give you some time to make some of the quilt and post it on social media before I closed it, so the winner will be announced next Wednesday. The details of how to enter are in last week's post.

I also have two beautiful finished quilt tops to show you! This one is the Single bed size of the quilt, and it was made by Jule Marz. I love the stronger colours and contrast Jule has used, the quilt just sparkles!

This quilt is the Queen sized version, and it was made by Sandy Spence. Sandy used some fabric from her stash, but also fabric from her dad's shirts, in memory of him. Its an absolutely beautiful thing to have to remember her dad, so so special. Well done Sandy.

This week we are talking about borders. The border on the original quilt was originally planned to have some hearts pieced into the strips here and there. As the quilt was made for my bed and wasn't ever supposed to be a pattern, I got to a point where I just wanted it on the bed for winter so I whacked the border on and finished! :D Silly me though, I posted progress pics on the internet and then everyone wanted to make one too. Which is lovely of course, but now I wish I went the extra mile. I might have to make a cot sized one and add the border hearts, to add a photo to the pattern.

The plan was for the border to look like this:

Essentially all you need to do to make it is to decide how many hearts you want to have on each border, and then piece a few strips to 6 1/2" with the heart squares inside. You can add them like this:

or like this:

so long as they add up to 6 1/2" when they're finished. Piece them into the strips that are the same background as the hearts in the blocks, so they float in the strip - so on my quilt,

they would be in the white border strips. 

Now I'm a pretty traditional girl when it comes to piecing, I don't like to take shortcuts. Thats mainly because I like to use a lot of different fabrics, and I like them to fall where my eye likes them, instead of being pieced into the same combinations every time. Not everyone is as bananas as me though, and if you're looking for a border shortcut, here it is!

• Cut full length strips from yardage or from fat quarters, at 2 1/2" wide. Sew a set of strips together along the length of the strip - I would make it no more than 6 or 8 strips at a time or you very much compromise your accuracy. Make sure you start with one colour and end with the other, or when you stitch them together you will have to add another colour strip in between! 

• Sew one strip in one direction, and the next strip in the other direction - this helps to stop everything twisting and warping as you sew. Press the strips after each strip you sew on, for the same reason.

• When you have a set stitched, you can cross cut the set to make border sections - line your ruler up with the straight lines of the seams, and cut 6 1/2" pieces from the strip set. Then you can sew all the sets together to make your border strips. Much quicker - just much less random!

I hope you've had fun making your quilt, don't forget to post your progress photos so that we can all see.

Happy Courting everyone!

Sarah x