Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Using Border Fabric

Here's a way to use directional border fabric in a string block as the center strip.
I used scissors to cut the paisley print fabric you see into 13 1/2 inch strips and placed each one down the middle diagonally on 12 1/2 inch foundations of muslin.
I then did the sew, flip and press method, sewing darker fabrics of varied widths on one side of the paisley fabric and lighter tone-on-tones on the opposite side. 

Here you can see what four block look like with the paisley seeming to give a framed look.

 Here is the final quilt top measuring roughly 80 inches square.  I love this look and now always look for border fabrics in a different way.

11 comments:

Finn said...

Love your tutorial on using directional border fabric Rhonda! What a great idea and really neat look to the blocks. Thanks for sharing.

Lori R. said...

Elegant look. Way to dress up our plain string blocks!!!

Brenda said...

wow! that consistent print in the centre strip makes a scrappy quilt look planned. thanks for posting this.

Bridget said...

This was interesting, and something I hadn't thought of before. Oh, the possibilities.....

Paulette said...

Very cool idea! I hadn't considered that before, but what a great variation on a string block.

Rhonda said...

You are welcome everyone. Let's keep those sewing machines humming!!

judith lockhart said...

I like the stripe center idea! Looks great!

Vivian said...

Never would have thought of this--Love it!

Magpie Sue said...

This is *really* lovely.

Connie Kresin Campbell said...

Beautiful blocks with the paisley print like that!

Linda said...

Wow! Love this great idea.