Adding borders to quilts

As a longarm quilter, one of the problems I see most often is border problems. I'll give you my tips on making sure your borders are perfect and your quilt top is flat. 1. Measure your quilt -- measure your quilt several times. Measure across the top, the bottom and across the middle widthwise. Are these measurements the same? If not, how far off are they? If it's just a quarter inch, I wouldn't get too worried about that. If it's more, fix it! Let's just say this top is supposed to be 60 x 70. Suppose your top measurement is 60.5 (which is what it should be). Suppose your middle measurement is 61 and your bottom measurement is 61.5. Sounds pretty absurd but I've taken borders off quilts and found that the top and bottom measurements might be up to 5" different. To take out some of the fullness at the bottom, find a seam that you can adjust without causing problems. Be careful making adjustments in seams that create points because you may lose a point. Make a few seams 1/8" larger. Measure again and continue until you get it right. If your center measurement was off . . go back to the center and adjust some of those seams. Do the same measurements for the left, right and middle lengthwise of the quilt. Once you are sure your top measurements are correct, you're ready to add borders. 2. Be sure your corners are square. Place a large square ruler on the corner and be sure the quilt top corner is square with the ruler. If you're not mitering the corners, add the side borders first, then add the top and bottom border. 3. Measure your borders. For this imaginary quilt, the side borders should be 70.5". Find the halfway point in the border and then divide those in half to find the quarter point. Mark these so you have a mark at every quarter of the border. Then mark the quarter points on your top. Match those marks, pin . . pin . . pin! 4. Make your seam. Press. Square across the top and bottom by trimming the top and bottom using your ruler to be sure it is all straight. 5. Add the top and bottom borders. Press. Square the corners. You should now have a nice, square, flat quilt! Judy L.