Unit 4: Blocks, Sashing and Borders

Proving the Scant Quarter-Inch Before You Cut a Single Block

A quilt block is arithmetic done in cloth. Every seam you sew subtracts a known amount from a known measurement, and the whole design holds together only because that subtraction is the same every time. Blocks, sashing, and borders all depend on it. So before you cut a yard of anything, you prove your machine.

Why a quarter inch, and why scant

Quilting settled on a quarter-inch seam allowance because it is narrow enough to keep bulk out of crowded intersections and wide enough to hold under handling. Patterns are drafted on that assumption: a square cut at 2 1/2 inches, sewn on all four sides at a quarter inch, finishes at 2 inches.

But a sewn seam is not a flat line. When you press the allowance to one side, the fold at the seam takes up a thread or two of fabric. Sew a true quarter inch and your finished piece comes out a hair small. Sew a scant quarter inch — roughly one thread's width narrower, about the thickness of a line of thread itself — and the piece finishes at the size the pattern intended. That is the whole reason for the word scant. It is a correction for the fold, not a sloppier seam.

The three-strip test

This is the test worth running on every machine you sew on, and again whenever you change presser feet or needle position.

Cut three strips of quilting cotton 1 1/2 inches wide by about 8 inches long. Sew them together along the long edges with what you believe is your quarter-inch seam. Press the seams — set the iron down on the seam line first, then press both allowances toward the outside strips. Now measure across the middle strip only.

• Exactly 1 inch: your seam allowance is right. The middle strip lost a quarter inch to each of its two seams.
• Less than 1 inch: your seam is too wide. Move the needle a thread to the right of where it was, or shift your fabric guide.
• More than 1 inch: your seam is too narrow. Correct the other direction.

Measure the finished unit across, too. Three 1 1/2-inch strips should give a 3 1/2-inch unit. If the middle is right but the total is off, your outer cut was off, not your seam.

Getting the machine to hold the line

A quarter-inch presser foot is the usual answer, and a good one. Do not simply trust the label — different machines and different feet do not all sit the same distance from the needle, so run the test rather than assuming. If your machine allows needle-position adjustment, that is the finest control you have; a single position step moves the seam by a fraction of a millimeter, which is exactly the size of correction you are looking for.

Set your stitch length to about 2.0 to 2.5 millimeters, roughly twelve stitches to the inch. That is short enough that intersections stay put when you trim across them, and short enough to hold without a backstitch in the middle of a long chain, but not so short that you will be miserable if you have to pick it out.

If you have no quarter-inch foot, build a guide. Lower the needle onto the quarter-inch line of a ruler, drop the presser foot to hold the ruler still, and lay a strip of masking tape or a stack of painter's tape along the ruler's edge in front of the foot. A raised tape edge you can feel is more reliable than a printed line you must watch.

Why this is worth an hour

An error of a sixteenth of an inch per seam sounds like nothing. Put nine patches across a block and you are off more than half an inch before you have sewn a single sashing strip. Blocks that will not square, sashing that comes up short, borders that ripple — most of it starts here.

Paul's counsel to prove all things and hold fast what is good is not a bad description of a sewing-room habit. Test the thing, keep what proves out, and quit guessing. There is no virtue in confidence that has never been measured, and no shame in discovering your seam has drifted. Better to find it in three scrap strips than in thirty finished blocks.

Prewashing, Starch, and Fabric That Behaves

Accurate blocks begin before the first cut. Quilting cotton straight off the bolt carries mill finishes, sizing, loose dye, and a certain amount of shrink still waiting to happen. How you handle it decides whether your pieces cut clean and hold their shape or stretch, fray, and drift.

To prewash or not

Prewashing removes manufacturing chemicals, releases shrinkage before the fabric is committed to a design, and — most importantly — lets loose dye escape into the wash water instead of into the white sashing of a finished quilt. Wash in cool water and dry on low heat. Deep reds, navies, and saturated batiks are the usual offenders, and a quilt that bleeds after it is quilted cannot be un-bled.

The argument for not prewashing is real, too. Unwashed fabric keeps its sizing, which makes it crisp and pleasant to rotary cut, and a quilt pieced from unwashed cotton and washed afterward gains that soft, gently crinkled surface many people want. The rule that matters is consistency: prewash all of it or none of it. A quilt with some fabrics shrunk and some not will pucker unevenly at the first laundering.

If you are unsure about a dark fabric, cut a small swatch, soak it in hot water in a white cup, and look at the water after twenty minutes. That is a cheap test compared with a ruined top.

Starch, and what it actually does

Spray starch or a liquid starch alternative stiffens the fibers so the fabric behaves more like paper and less like cloth. Starched cotton cuts cleanly under the rotary blade instead of shifting ahead of it, frays far less at the raw edge, and — the real prize — holds still on a bias edge.

Apply it in light passes rather than one soaking. Spray, let it sink in for a few seconds so the surface is not merely wet, then press with a dry iron. Two light applications leave a better hand than one heavy one, which can flake and leave white residue on dark fabric. Press, do not scrub; sliding a hot iron across damp starched cotton will distort the very grain you are trying to stabilize.

Starch matters most for half-square and quarter-square triangles, diamonds, and any piece whose edge is cut on the diagonal. A bias edge stretches easily because the weave can shear along the diagonal, and once it has stretched it will not go back. A starched bias edge will feed under the presser foot without growing.

Grain, and how to find it

The lengthwise grain runs parallel to the selvage and has almost no give. The crosswise grain runs selvage to selvage and stretches slightly. Anything cut off those two directions is bias, and true bias, at forty-five degrees, is the stretchiest of all.

Tug an edge between your hands and you can feel it. That test is worth doing on every cut strip, because the direction you place a piece in a block determines whether its outer edge will stay straight. When you cut long strips for sashing or borders, cutting them along the lengthwise grain gives you strips that do not grow while you handle them — a real advantage when a border strip is seventy inches long.

Practical prep, start to finish

Press the yardage flat before cutting, folding selvage to selvage and settling the fold so it hangs straight. Trim the selvage away; it is woven more tightly than the body and will pull. Square the cut end against the fold before cutting strips, and re-square every few cuts, because small angles creep in and turn straight strips into shallow V shapes.

A dull rotary blade defeats all of this. It crushes and drags the edge instead of parting it, and it tempts you to press harder, which slides the ruler. Change the blade when it starts skipping threads. Cut away from your body, cap the blade the moment you set the cutter down, and never leave an open cutter on a table where a child can reach it.

Our Lord speaks of the vine dresser purging a fruitful branch so that it may bear more. Preparation work has the same character. Washing out what will bleed and cutting away what will pull is not fussiness; it clears away the things that would spoil the fruit of a hundred hours of piecing.

Setting the Seam: Pressing That Makes Blocks Lie Flat

More block accuracy is lost at the ironing board than at the machine. A seam sewn perfectly can still be pressed a sixteenth of an inch out of true, and once several of those stack up in one block, no amount of careful stitching will save it. Pressing is a technique with steps, not a chore to be hurried through.

Pressing is not ironing

Ironing means sliding a hot plate across cloth to remove wrinkles. That motion drags fabric, and dragged fabric on a bias edge stretches and stays stretched. Pressing means lifting the iron, setting it down, holding, and lifting again. The iron moves straight down and straight up. Nothing slides.

Work slowly enough to keep your fingers behind the plate. An iron runs at 350 degrees Fahrenheit or hotter on a cotton setting, which will burn you badly before you can pull away. Set it on its heel every single time you let go, and if children are in the room, run the cord where it cannot be caught by a passing elbow.

Step one: set the seam

Before you open the unit at all, lay it down exactly as it came off the machine — right sides still together, seam allowance closed — and set the iron squarely over the stitching line for two or three seconds. Lift straight up.

This is called setting the seam. The heat relaxes the thread and lets it sink into the weave, so the stitches stop standing proud on the surface. The result is a flatter, more accurate seam and a fold that lands exactly on the stitching line instead of a thread or two beside it. Skipping this step is one of the most common reasons a carefully sewn nine-patch will not square up.

Step two: press to one side, or open

Now open the unit, lay it right side up, and use the tip of the iron to walk the top fabric back from the seam until the fold is snug against the stitching. Press it down. A seam allowance pressed to one side is strong, hides the raw edges, and gives you the ridge you will need for nesting.

Pressing the allowance open distributes bulk more evenly and gives the flattest possible intersection, which is why it suits blocks where six or eight seams meet at one point. The cost is a slightly weaker seam line and stitches exposed on the back, which matters if you plan to quilt in the ditch. Choose deliberately for each block rather than doing the same thing out of habit.

The most common failure here is the pleat: a small tuck folded in at the seam where the fabric was not walked fully back before the iron came down. Measure a pieced unit after pressing, and if it comes up a hair short, look for a pleat before you blame your seam allowance.

Step three: press for nesting

When blocks are joined into rows, press the seams of row one to the left and row two to the right, alternating down the quilt. Where two rows meet, the allowances face opposite directions and the folded ridges butt against each other. Push them together with your fingertips and you will feel them lock. That lock holds an intersection better than a pin, and you can pin right through the locked point to keep it there.

Steam or dry? Dry pressing distorts least and is the safer default for pieced units. Steam flattens more aggressively and is useful on stubborn seams and long border strips, but it also relaxes the fibers enough that they can be pushed out of shape, so press with the grain and do not lean on the iron. Some quilters follow steam with a wooden clapper — a flat hardwood block pressed onto the seam right after the iron leaves — which holds heat and moisture in the cloth as it cools and sets the seam remarkably flat.

Take away the dross, says the proverb, and there comes forth a vessel for the finer. Heat is what separates. The same principle sits under your ironing board: patient heat, rightly applied, takes out what does not belong and leaves work fit to be handled.

Chain Piecing a Nine-Patch Without Losing Your Place

Chain piecing is the difference between an afternoon and a week. Instead of sewing one seam, cutting the thread, lifting the foot, and starting over, you feed unit after unit under the needle in a continuous run, leaving a small bridge of thread between each. Done with a little order, it is faster and more consistent than stopping between every pair, because the machine never leaves its rhythm.

Setting up the run

Work a nine-patch to learn it. Cut nine squares at 2 1/2 inches for each block, arranged three across and three down in whatever light and dark pattern pleases you. A nine-patch made this way finishes at 6 inches and measures 6 1/2 inches unfinished, a convenient size for sashing later.

Lay each block out on a tray or a piece of batting near the machine, in its final arrangement. That layout is your map, and the whole method depends on not losing it. Stack the pairs you are about to sew in the order they will feed, right sides together, and put the stack to the left of the needle where your left hand can pick them up without looking.

Sew the first pair with a normal start. Two or three stitches before you run off the end, stop feeding fabric and let the machine make three or four stitches on nothing at all; then feed the next pair straight in behind. Those few empty stitches are the chain. Do not lift the presser foot between units and do not cut thread. When the last pair goes through, sew off the end, then cut the whole chain free.

Because the units are joined and never leave the needle line, you can skip a backstitch inside the chain — the following unit locks the thread. Do backstitch, or shorten your stitch, on any seam that will be handled hard or that ends at the outer edge of a block.

Working across the block

Sew all the left-column-to-center-column pairs first, in row order, all the way through the stack of blocks. Snip them apart, press, and return each unit to its place on the layout. Then chain the right column onto each pair the same way. Now you have three rows per block.

Press with nesting in mind: in rows one and three press the allowances toward the outside, and in row two press them toward the center — or simply press odd rows one direction and even rows the other. When you join the rows, the seams at each intersection will face opposite ways and lock together.

Join row one to row two across the whole stack of blocks in a chain, then add row three. Snip, press, and square.

Where chains go wrong

Losing orientation. The most common error is picking up a unit and sewing the wrong edge, which turns a nine-patch into a puzzle. The fix is discipline, not talent: always place the stack the same way, always sew the same edge, always return the unit to the layout before touching the next.

Nested wrong. If you press two adjoining rows the same direction, the allowances pile on top of each other and the intersection turns thick and slightly off. It is faster to re-press than to unpick.

Thread nests at the start. A chain that begins on nothing can pull thread down into the machine. Start the run on a small scrap of folded fabric — a leader — feed the real units behind it, and end on another scrap. Those scraps also keep the first and last units from being chewed at the corner.

Drift. Halfway through a long chain, check one unit against the ruler. A quarter-inch seam that has crept wider will not announce itself, and it is cheaper to catch at unit twelve than at unit sixty.

Paul writes plainly to a church about people working not at all and busying themselves in everything else. Sewing has its own version of that disorder — five projects opened, none finished, thread everywhere. A chain of units is a small argument for the other way: one set of pieces, in order, worked through to the end.

Pinning for Points That Meet

An intersection where four seams meet is the place a quilt is judged. Points that are cut off, corners that wander, a sashing joint that jogs a sixteenth of an inch — those are the things the eye finds from across a room. Almost all of it is a pinning problem, and pinning is a skill with a method.

The right pins

Use fine, sharp pins — glass-head or flower-head pins in a slender gauge. A thick pin displaces fabric around itself, which means the pieces you carefully aligned are held slightly apart by the pin. Flower-head pins lie flat under a ruler and are easy to see against a busy print. Whatever you use, keep them sharp; a burred pin drags threads and leaves visible holes in tightly woven cotton.

Never sew over a pin. A needle striking a pin can shatter, throwing fragments toward your face, and at the very least it will bend the needle, throw off the machine's timing, or nick the throat plate. Pull each pin as the presser foot approaches it.

Pinning a nested intersection

This is the workhorse technique and worth doing exactly.

1. Press the two seams that will meet in opposite directions so their folded ridges face each other.
2. Bring the units right sides together and slide them until the two ridges butt up. Your fingertips will feel the moment they lock; do not trust your eyes for this.
3. Push a pin straight down through the seam line of the top unit, exactly at the stitching, and out through the seam line of the bottom unit. Hold it vertical for a moment and check the back — the pin should exit right on the lower seam, not beside it. This vertical pin is a positioning check, not a holder.
4. Set a pin on each side of the intersection, about a quarter inch away, angled to hold the layers. Then pull the vertical pin out before sewing.

That pair of pins on either side keeps the intersection from creeping while the feed dogs work. Sewing over the locked ridge with nothing holding it is how points shift.

Pinning a point

A triangle point should sit a quarter inch in from the raw edge, so that when the seam is sewn the point lands exactly at the seam line and is not cut off. Find the X of stitches where the two triangle seams cross on the wrong side; that X marks the point. Pin through the X on the top piece and into the matching seam line below.

If your points come out blunted, your seam is too wide, not your pinning. If they come out floating, with a bit of background above them, the seam is too narrow. Sew one test seam, look at the right side, and adjust by a needle position rather than guessing.

Longer seams and easing

Long seams — rows to rows, sashing to a row of blocks — need pins at both ends, at the center, and then at the quarter points, working from the middle outward. That order matters. Pinning end to end and hoping for the best pushes all of the discrepancy into the last few inches.

If one piece is slightly longer, pin it fairly across the length and let the extra distribute in small amounts between pins. Sew with the longer piece underneath; the feed dogs will ease it in while the presser foot holds the shorter piece steady. That single habit corrects a surprising amount of small mismatch. If the difference is more than about an eighth of an inch over a foot, stop and find the real cause instead of easing it in.

The prophet speaks of a servant fastened as a nail in a sure place, holding the weight of a household. A pin in the right place does small work of the same kind: it fixes one point so that everything hanging on it stays true. Slide the pin a thread off, and the whole block leans. Ordinary faithfulness, in the small place, holds up the visible thing.

Squaring Up: The Two-Step Trim That Rescues a Block

No matter how carefully you sew, blocks drift. Thread takes up a hair of width, pressing pulls a fraction, bias edges relax. A stack of blocks that are each a sixteenth off in a different direction will fight you for the rest of the quilt, because sashing and borders are cut to one number and cannot accommodate ten. Squaring up brings the whole stack back to a single measurement.

Know your number first

Before you trim anything, decide what the block should measure unfinished. A block that finishes at 6 inches in the quilt measures 6 1/2 inches unfinished, because a quarter inch on each of the four sides will disappear into the joining seams. Write that number down.

Then measure all of your blocks and find the smallest one. If most measure 6 1/2 and two measure 6 3/8, you have a decision to make: trim every block to 6 3/8 and adjust your sashing arithmetic, or unpick and correct the two small blocks. Trimming down to the runt is legitimate as long as you check that trimming will not cut off points. Lay the ruler over the smallest block and see where its outer seam line falls. If the trim would slice into a triangle tip, fix the block instead.

The two-step trim

You need a square ruler at least as large as your block — 6 1/2 inch and 12 1/2 inch squares are the common sizes — a rotary cutter with a fresh blade, and a mat you can turn.

1. Press the block thoroughly flat, from the back first, then the front.
2. Lay it on the mat and set the ruler down so that a printed line of the ruler runs along a key seam inside the block. On a nine-patch, use the seam between the first and second columns; on a star, use the diagonal through the center. This is what keeps the block square to its own design rather than square to its wobbly outer edges.
3. Position so that half of the target measurement falls on each side of the block's center where possible, then trim the top edge and the right edge in two clean cuts.
4. Rotate the block 180 degrees. Do not lift and flip it — turn the mat if you can, so the block is not disturbed.
5. Align the just-cut edges under the ruler at the target measurement, 6 1/2 inches in both directions, and trim the remaining two sides.

Two cuts, a turn, two more cuts. The order matters because the second pair of cuts is measured from freshly trued edges rather than from the original ragged ones.

What squaring will not fix

Squaring is a trim, not a repair. It cannot restore a block whose center seams are off, and it will happily saw the tips off your points while you tell yourself the edges look better. If the ruler shows the center of your design sitting away from the center of the block, the problem is inside, and the honest answer is the seam ripper.

Watch for a block that is square but not flat. A block with a slight dome in the middle has too much fabric there, usually from a pleat at a seam or from pressing that pushed fabric outward. Trimming the edges only makes it worse; press it properly first, then trim.

Keep your fingers behind the ruler and behind the blade path, and walk your left hand up the ruler as you cut so the pressure stays ahead of the blade. Close the cutter every time you set it down. A rotary blade will open a finger to the bone without any sense that it met resistance, and it is the tool most likely to be picked up by a curious child.

The proverb tells the herdsman to be diligent to know the state of his flocks — to go out and look, not assume. A quilter's version is a measured block, one at a time, with the ruler laid on. You cannot manage what you have not measured, and blocks are far more honest under a ruler than under a hopeful eye.

Half-Square Triangles and the Discipline of Bias

The half-square triangle is the workhorse of pieced design. Two triangles joined on the diagonal give you a square with a line through it, and from that one unit come pinwheels, sawtooth stars, flying geese variations, and a great share of the traditional blocks worth making. It is also the first unit where bias will punish carelessness, which is why it belongs after you have your quarter inch proven and your pressing habits settled.

The two-at-a-time method

Cut two squares — one light, one dark — 7/8 inch larger than the finished size of the half-square triangle you want. For a unit finishing at 3 inches, cut 3 7/8 inch squares. The extra 7/8 inch covers the two quarter-inch seam allowances plus the diagonal.

On the wrong side of the lighter square, draw one diagonal line corner to corner with a sharp pencil or a fine marking tool. Lay the squares right sides together, edges even, and pin. Sew a scant quarter inch away from the drawn line on both sides of it. Cut apart exactly on the drawn line. Open each unit and you have two half-square triangles.

Press the seam toward the darker fabric so it does not shadow through the light one, or press it open if the unit will land in a crowded intersection. Then trim the little triangular ears that stick out past the corners; leaving them adds bulk and confuses your ruler later.

Why the cut edges misbehave

The seam you just sewed runs along the true bias of both fabrics. When you open the unit, the outer edges are on the straight grain, which is the point of the method — but while the unit is being handled, the diagonal wants to stretch. Pull it and you will have a rhombus, not a square.

Three habits keep it honest. Starch the squares before you draw and sew. Press by setting the iron down and lifting it, never gliding it along the diagonal. And handle the units by their straight-grain edges, not by pulling on the diagonal.

If you would rather not fight it at all, some quilters cut the squares a full inch larger than the finished size instead of 7/8 inch, sew, and then trim every unit down to exact size. You waste a little fabric and gain uniform, reliably square units. For any block that depends on matched points, that is a fair trade.

Trimming to true size

Trimming is where a half-square triangle becomes a precise thing. Use a square ruler that carries a 45-degree diagonal line. Lay the diagonal line of the ruler directly along the seam of the unit, position the ruler so the target unfinished measurement — 3 1/2 inches for a unit finishing at 3 — falls inside the fabric on both sides, and trim two edges. Rotate 180 degrees, align the trimmed edges at 3 1/2 inches, and cut the last two.

If the diagonal seam does not run corner to corner after trimming, your unit was already skewed and the ruler simply confirmed it. If the seam is straight but the unit is short, your quarter inch was wide.

Pointing them well

When two half-square triangles are joined, the point of each triangle must sit a quarter inch from the raw edge or the joining seam will cut it off. Check on the wrong side before you sew: the seam crossing should form a clean X a quarter inch in. That habit will do more for the look of a finished star block than any amount of expensive fabric.

The psalmist says he was curiously wrought — skillfully and intricately made — in secret, where no eye could watch the work. Something of that belongs to piecing. Most of what makes a block beautiful happens on the back, in the seams no one will ever see, in a quarter inch measured honestly when nobody would know the difference.

Y-Seams: Setting a Piece Into a Corner

Most quilt piecing is straight seams sewn edge to edge. Some blocks are not built that way. A hexagon rosette, a LeMoyne star, a tumbling-block design — these require a piece to be set into an angled corner formed by two others, and three seams meet at a single point. That junction is a Y-seam, and it is the technique that separates a quilter who can sew any block from one who must avoid a whole family of patterns.

What makes it different

In an ordinary seam you sew from raw edge to raw edge. In a Y-seam you must stop a quarter inch short of the corner, leaving that quarter inch free so the piece can pivot. If you sew all the way through, the allowance is locked flat and the third piece cannot lie down. Everything about the technique follows from that one requirement.

Marking and pinning

Mark the quarter-inch point on the wrong side of every piece that meets at the junction — where the two seam lines cross at the corner. A fine pencil dot or a single pin hole is enough; a template with the corner clipped off makes the mark easy to place. Do this before you sit down to sew. Trying to find the point by eye at the machine is how Y-seams get their reputation.

Shorten your stitch length to about 2.0 millimeters. The shorter stitch gives you more control near the stop point and holds a seam that ends mid-fabric rather than at a secured edge.

Sewing the three seams

1. First seam. Place two pieces right sides together, matching the marked dots. Backstitch at the start, sew along the seam line, and stop exactly at the marked dot a quarter inch from the corner. Backstitch there. That backstitch is not optional — it is the only thing anchoring a seam that stops in open fabric.
2. Second seam. Bring the third piece to one side of the pair. Pin through the marked dot of the third piece and the dot at the junction, checking that the pin exits precisely at the mark on the other side. Begin at the outer raw edge and sew inward, stopping and backstitching at the dot. Never sew across the first seam's allowance; keep it folded out of the way.
3. Third seam. Pivot the work so the remaining two edges lie together. The free quarter inch you left will let the pieces swing into line. Sew from the junction outward, starting with a backstitch right at the dot, taking care that the needle enters at the same point where the other two seams ended.

Press the three allowances in a small pinwheel around the junction — each one laid in the same rotational direction — so the bulk spreads instead of piling. The center will lie almost flat.

What goes wrong

A pucker at the center. The seam went a stitch or two past the dot. Pick out two stitches and the pucker releases.

A hole at the junction. One seam stopped short of the dot. Restitch that seam a stitch or two further in.

A ripple in the set-in piece. The angles do not match, usually because a piece was cut slightly off. Check the cut piece against the template before blaming the seam.

Go slowly, and use the handwheel for the last few stitches into a dot rather than the foot pedal. That much control near a marked point is worth the seconds, and it keeps your fingers well clear of the needle while you are working close and looking hard.

The writer of Hebrews speaks of strong meat belonging to those of full age, whose senses are exercised by use. Skill grows exactly that way — by use, not by reading. Nobody sews a clean Y-seam the first time. Sew six hexagons together, take the first one apart, and sew it again; the discernment comes with the hands.

Sashing and Cornerstones: Giving Each Block Its Frame

Sashing is the strip of fabric set between blocks. It does two things at once. Visually, it gives each block a quiet border so that busy blocks do not run into one another and the eye can rest. Practically, it is forgiving: a sashed setting hides small differences between blocks far better than blocks joined edge to edge, where every seam must line up with its neighbor across the whole quilt.

Cutting the strips

Decide the finished width first. Sashing that finishes at 1 1/2 or 2 inches suits most quilts; wider than about 3 inches and the sashing starts to be the design instead of the frame. Add a half inch to the finished width for the two seam allowances. Sashing finishing at 2 inches is cut 2 1/2 inches wide.

Cut the length to match your blocks' unfinished measurement. If your squared blocks measure 6 1/2 inches, every vertical sashing strip between blocks in a row is cut 2 1/2 by 6 1/2 inches. Cut these on the lengthwise grain if you can spare the yardage; those strips will not grow while you handle them.

Two ways to set it

Sashing without cornerstones. Sew short sashing strips between the blocks of each row. Press the allowances toward the sashing — this is nearly always the right direction, because the sashing has no seams of its own and can absorb the bulk, and because it lets the block seams stand out crisply. Then measure the completed row, cut long horizontal sashing strips to that exact length, and join the rows with them.

Sashing with cornerstones. Here small squares sit at every junction. Cut the cornerstones the same width as the cut sashing strip — 2 1/2 inch squares for 2 1/2 inch sashing — so they finish square. Build the horizontal sashing rows by alternating cornerstone, sashing strip, cornerstone, sashing strip, and so on across. Then alternate block rows and sashing rows down the quilt.

Cornerstones cost a little more work and pay for it twice. They give the eye a place to land, and they give you a matching point: when you join a sashing row to a block row, the cornerstone seams should meet the sashing seams of the row above and below. Press the cornerstone-row allowances toward the sashing strips and the block-row allowances toward the sashing as well, and the two will nest at each junction.

Keeping it straight

The failure everyone meets is a quilt that grows crooked as the rows are added. It happens because each long sashing strip was cut to fit the row it was laid against instead of to one number.

Do this instead. Measure your completed block rows across the middle, not along the top edge, since the edges may have stretched. If the rows differ slightly, take the average and cut every long sashing strip to that one length. Then pin each strip to each row at the ends, the center, and the quarter points, and ease any small difference in between as you sew, with the longer piece underneath. The quilt is made square by holding to a single measurement, not by matching each piece to the last.

Watch the joint where a sashing seam should carry through from one row to the next. If block row one's sashing seams do not line up with block row three's, the eye reads it immediately as a jog, even at a distance. Pin those seams to each other before you pin anything else.

Solomon says a word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver — a fine thing given a fine setting, each showing off the other. Sashing is that setting. It asks nothing for itself, and it makes every block around it look better than it would alone. That is a good pattern for more than fabric.

Borders That Lie Flat: Measuring Through the Center

A wavy border is the single most common flaw in an otherwise good quilt, and it is entirely preventable. The ruffle you see along the edge of a finished top is extra fabric that was sewn in, and it has nowhere to go. A longarm quilter can ease a little of it away; she cannot make six inches of surplus disappear. The fix is a measuring habit, and it takes ten minutes.

Why borders ripple

The outer edges of a pieced top are the most handled part of the quilt, and often the most bias. By the time the top is assembled, those edges have stretched. If you lay a border strip along an edge and cut it to match, you cut in the stretch and sew it permanently into the quilt. Every added border then repeats and compounds the error, so a top with three borders can gain several inches of waviness at the outside.

The center of the quilt, by contrast, is stabilized by all its seams. It has not stretched, and it tells the truth about how long the quilt really is.

The measuring method

For side borders:

1. Lay the top flat on a large surface, smoothed but not stretched.
2. Measure the length through the vertical center of the quilt, from raw edge to raw edge.
3. Measure the length again a few inches in from each side edge.
4. If those three numbers differ, average them; if one edge is wildly longer, that edge has stretched and the center measurement should carry the most weight.
5. Cut both side borders to that one length, cut on the lengthwise grain when yardage allows.

Fold each border strip in half and mark the center with a pin; fold the quilt edge in half and mark its center. Pin at both ends and at the center, then at the quarter points. Any surplus in the quilt edge now distributes in four small stretches instead of collecting at one end. Sew with the quilt on the bottom so the feed dogs ease the fuller layer.

Press the seam toward the border. Then measure across the horizontal center of the quilt — now including the two side borders you just added — and cut the top and bottom borders to that number. That second measurement is the step most often skipped, and skipping it is why a quilt can come out with flat sides and ruffled ends.

Butted and mitered corners

A butted corner is what the method above produces: sides on first, then top and bottom running the full width. It is simple and strong.

A mitered corner joins the border strips at a 45-degree angle, which looks best with striped or directional border fabric because the pattern turns the corner. Cut each strip longer than the quilt side by at least twice the finished border width plus a few inches of insurance. Sew each border to the quilt beginning and ending a quarter inch from each corner, backstitching at both stops, exactly as with a Y-seam. Then fold the quilt diagonally at the corner so the two loose border ends lie together, align the fabric, and stitch out from the inner corner at 45 degrees. Check that the corner lies flat before trimming the excess to a quarter inch.

Checking your work

Lay the bordered top on the floor. It should lie flat with no rippling at the outer edge and no pull in the corners. Measure the two sides and the two ends against each other; they should match within a fraction. Hold a straightedge along an outer edge — a border that bows outward has surplus in it, and it is better to unpick one seam now than to fight the whole edge under a quilting machine.

Israel was told to make fringes in the borders of their garments through all generations, a visible edge that reminded them whose they were. A quilt's border does honest work of the same kind: it is the last thing the eye follows, it holds the whole design in, and it says plainly whether the maker cared all the way to the outside.