Well that's the end of strippy border! We seem to be onto geese now and I was very interested in your remarks about making it easier - anything that eases my path is Good! I looked on Deb Tucker's website and it is hard to see how it works so I wrote and asked her if she will have a stand at the Quilt Show in ..Houston! I also looked up Sue Garman's advice about inner borders, very interesting and have that filed away in my brain somewhere for future reference. Thanks for all the help and posts, it's been really lovely to be able to consult fellow quilters from the grades above!

makesgeese wrote:
No problem! I live in Tennessee, and didn't want to miss a show in Nashville because I wasn't aware of it!!

Margo..opps...sorry! Margarita said she was going to Houston, not Nashville as I wrote in my last post. I just edited my post to say Houston. I hope I have it right now.

Thank you so much Margo, I'll be looking at that to see if it shines light on my goose dilemma!

Margarita wrote:
Margarita, check out the directions in Month 2 of last year's (2009) Stars For a New Day BOM

makesgeese wrote:
Barbara, what show are you referring to???
I'm not sure that Margarita can make it to Nashville, since she live in Venezuela!!

Margarita...I know...making 160 flying geese seems like alot of geese. No... that is alot of geese!
Like Margo I've sized my inside border to fit my pieced border. That's easier then making your pieced border fit your quilt top.
You might want to check out Deb Tucker's booth at the Houston Show. She is Studio 180 Designs. Deb has a "wing clipper" tool for making flying geese. Try it...I like it...
Good luck on your quilt and have fun at the show...

That would be really interesting if I understood it! How embarasssing, would you mind terribly looking up the Pattern and Month for me, please? I have downloaded all the blocks of the month from last year and this (to make in my next life) and would be very interested to see what you mean, perhaps I should set out to conquer flying geese in my next project! My quilting buddies today decided for me, and I am with them, that I should put a plain border on about two thirds of a block deep, 6", and I can use my strippy border idea for the binding which I think may be very effective although a bit fiddly to do. The border will be navy blue and I'm going to quilt a cable in it with cream coloured cotton, my friend has done a quilt with this and it looks pretty good, I'll be quilting the whole thing with cream colour so it will be a natural carry over.

Or you can make your flying geese borders large enough that you KNOW they will be plenty big enough to fit the sides of the quilt, then add a "floater strip" to fill in the gap from the center of the quilt! This is a trick that Sue Garman has taught us with the TQS Block of the Month patterns! Slick trick!

This for Makesgeese - at first I thought of doing flying geese all around the border and although I have the TQS method all written down, I found the maths awful. I was thrown out of maths class age 14 but I think I had to do about 160 geese to get around my quilt and my heart just failed at the idea of trying to sort out the right proportion of goose to block. Maybe I should wait until I go to the Houston Quilt Show and see if someone has invented a faster goose!

I like that idea of just a bit of strippy, that would get the job done quicker too! I'm off to see my quilting buddies with my work in progress - everyone talks about UFOs but what about WIPs? Well whatever I decide eventually to do for a border no-one will be able to say I didn't try, try and try again! Thanks for the help!

Here's another thought to trow into the pot. If the strippy part is too much, how about making only part of the border strippy and the rest solid. Like opposite corners or just one corner. I've seen it done and looks really nice.

Margarita...I just read your last post and had to laugh. All that thinking and planning and and trying and retrying and in the end it is ..."umm, I don't think so." I spent two whole days of my quilting vacation (my vacation to quilt, not from quilting) doing the same thing. Anyway, two days working on the border of a quilt...triangles?...alternating little squares?..ice cream cone? Doing the math, making samples and finally realizing..."umm...I don't think I even want a border. I like it just the way it is. But, maybe just a scallop on the edge." So, you never know! But I believe that as quilters, we love the whole process...the planning, the thinking, and the problem solving. So, good luck fom an understanding quilter in NY.

Thank You! Although it's not the width of the fabric that bothers me, it was the actual size of the strips in the strippy border and here's the kicker - I'm not sure AGAIN if a strippy border is the right thing! Can you believe it, anyway my two quilting buddies are back (I live in Venezuela so no guilds, no expert help at hand) and I will show them the quilt tomorrow and I'll see what they say when they actually see it. I have been so impressed by the kind people helping me without even seeing the beastly thing!!