You have solved your problem for this time but I thought I might add this idea. I lay a piece of fabric along the edge--the width I think I might like and audition it. It also lets me see if the fabric I am thinking of using is what I really want to use.

I look forward to getting to that point with this one but I hand quilt so don't hold your breath!!

I look forward to seeing a photo of your quilt.

Thanks for the reply. Yesterday I decided to go with 0.75" wide strips for the border and now I really like it. I think this is because the strips are exactly half the width of the small squares in the four patch so it kind of fits better, looks right anyway whereas the smaller strips looked stunning on their own but too busy next to the quilt. The funny (peculiar) thing that happened is that I used exactly the same colour order/combination in both strips and now in the bigger strips the mistakes are obvious and I need to play with that. What's not to love about quilting, you are never done!!

I think I was told at one point to use measurements from within the quilt for borders. either the same size or 1/3. like your 3" block you could make borders 1" and 3". If its 6" block 2" and 6" borders. It keeps a consistency throughout the quilt. If you don't have time to play on the computer, use scrap strips in different sizes to see what combinations looks good to you. I do that a lot cause I don't want to get sucked into computer land.

Good luck, and have fun with it!! For what it's worth, I think my EQ software was money well spent! I just used it this morning to print out some foundation patterns!

Thank you so much, I am thinking of buying that Electric Quilt software when I next go to the USA, that is if it is fun and easy to use. Meantime your idea of drawing out a block with the border to scale is brilliant - why didn't I think of that!

Your theory sounds good to me! Maybe you know someone who can work the design up in Electric Quilt or some other quilting software for you, or you can draw part of the quilt out to scale with a pencil and paper to see which scale is the most pleasing to you.

I will try and put a photo on this weekend but it is way beyond my computer skills. I am 57, have a part time job and what is left of my brain goes into quilting not computing!! The strippy border piece I made is 5" deep so that's not a problem, in a Joen Wolfrom book she recommends the border width be half or less of the finished size of a block, so I can adjust that when it is finished. My blocks are 9.5" as I put a 0.25 strip around the ones with the irish chain arrangement of four patch blocks. The strippy border looks great really but I think it could be wider, maybe just having the strips 0.75" finished width would do it, I have a good "eye" for when it is done right but not a see into the future "eye" unfortunately. I have been thinking that as the small squares in the four patch are 1.5" then if the strips were 0.75" that would do it. Just that I see hours going in experimenting and was hoping there might be a rule of thumb!!

Margarita, please post a photo and/or tell us what isn't quite right with your border. Do you think the strips are too narrow?
If so, could you sew a strip of fabric on each side of your pieced border making your border larger? Would that work?

I've made a quilt top with shirt scraps in a roughly irish chain design with a fourpatch square set on point in the plain blocks. Using the remaining shirt leftovers I started to make a strippy border which looks great but not quite right. The four patch squares in the blocks are 3" square so each little square is 1.5" square. I made the strippy pieces for the border half an inch finished width because I thought any bigger would be too much but perhaps there is a rule of thumb for this only I can't find it on Google so am asking here. Also if I keep experimenting I may run out of scraps! Down in Venezuela so any suggestions welcome!