Borders and bindings

One more post related to my recent finishing ten I spy quilts.  Many times I will make a top but not add borders or quilt it until I know what I am going to do with it.  On occasion I have wanted to make it bigger for an older child and so will make the borders larger.  But this time I wanted to finish all the tops I had made (plus one I found in the closet).  So I was adding borders, quilting and binding all 10 at the same time.  Just to mix things up a bit I tries some different things.

This border & binding is pretty typical of what I usually use.  A bright narrow inner border (1" wide) with a dark patterned wide border of 2.5" and a binding from the same fabric.  I like this on quilts where I want the pattern of the quilt to be the center of attention and the borders to act like a picture frame & mat.

On this I had added a pieced inner border to make the quilt larger and made the outside border from the same fabric as the corner stones in the quilt.  But I didn't have enough for the binding.  I decided to use a nice black with larger polka dots.  It doesn't fight with the busy border at all, kind of fades into the background. I had purchased the fabric thinking to use it for narrow inner borders but it works pretty well for bindings too - I may have to go back by Hobby lobby to get more.  I have a feeling I'll use this one frequently and I only got 2 yards.  

For this quilt I liked a green inner border and I used the last of the fabric with those little scattered squares (the reason I didn't have enough for binding the previous quilt).  I didn't want to use the black dots again for the binding - and definitely didn't want green so what else would work?

I had this rainbow loops fabric that I have purchased for borders many MANY years ago but it never seemed to work on any of the quilts I tried it with - always too busy or something.  It had been in my stash for at least 8 years (I know it was at least that long because I did use a little of it on a T-shirt quilt).  I decided it was time to use it and so I cut it all up for binding. It works pretty well on the quilt - a bit crazier than the black with polka dots but since the quilt itself has a lot of calm white background I think it will be ok.  

Here's a bigger pic of the loops.

Since I was "using up" old fabric, I pulled out this one too.  I actually was given this fabric by a coworker when her mother died - since I have not worked with her for 12 years that gives you an idea how long it has been in my stash.

But see how well it works on this quilt - it sets off the simple pattern  and makes the novelties sparkle.  I like that it reads more as a color of it's own instead of the black multi that I frequently use.  

This string quilt was looking a little calm with the chambray border/sashing so I gave it the rainbow loops binding and it really set it off great, a perfect use of that wild fabric.

After adding this border fabric I realized I was getting pretty low on this fabric and wanted to save it for another quilt.  So I used the remainder of the blue/purple binding instead.  I wish it was a better match for the blue inner border but it's such a busy quilt I think I'm probably overthinking it.  Certainly not worth replacing the inner border.

This border I struggled what to use for binding also, but I had some notes binding left from another quilt, so I made a bit more and added it.  The colors work and it's so narrow I don't think anyone will notes I mixed alphabet & music notes.

After adding all these borders I got nervous that I was getting low on border fabric so I went by Hobby Lobby to see if they still had either of the numbers/letter fabrics I had gotten last summer.  Of course they didn't - but they did have some great fireworks fabric.  I had previously purchased some of this to use in the novelty quilts (for eXplosions - haha) but decided it might work well for borders too.  So I bought 2 more yards.   Certainly it is bright enough.  I also purchased 2 yards of the black with dots for the narrow border.  The dots are larger than what I've used in background before, I like that you can really see the colors of the dots.  On this I didn't want more contrast so I made the binding from the same fabric as the border.

I like how it sets off this quilt with so much white background.  It balances it will without overpowering.

This next quilt had me stumped for a while.  I really liked how it turned out but everything I tried as a border just didn't work right.  They all seemed to distract from the fun rainbow wave pattern.

Finally I decided to just add a binding with no border but make it a bit wider than my usual 2.5".  I had just a bit of this striped fabric left in my stash and cut it straight of grain so the stripes would be perpendicular to the quilt. 

This is another one of those fabrics that I have used in several I spy (and T-shirt) quilts over the years.  Joann fabrics carried this along with a coordinating black background with scattered multi dots for several years and I used them a lot.  But no more - they are both gone now. Part of quilting is using things up, even favorite fabrics.  I'm sure I'll find new favorites.