Thanks for that Margarita. A great technique for prairie points.

If anyone is interested to see this prairie point ruler demo, here's the link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXM1GqnFQAQ. I looked again and I don't think that is a Texas accent but she is cute and funny. This is the Fat Quarter Shop notion of the month and on their Blog are the 3 other rulers Janet Platt invented.Guess what? I have a whole collection of rulers I bought at the beginning of my quilt journey, thinking they looked useful but most of them have never gotten out of the drawer where they hide. I just dug around and found a Fons & Porter Omnigrid ruler for Diagonal set triangles! So, I'm all fixed. Margo I see now you answered the borders question with the Quilt Show link, I'm going to look at that too because I am curious. Thanks again.

Hi Margarita -

I think the "train wreck" she talked about would be when the spacing of the cross-hatching on the shorter border is a lot different that the spacing on the longer border. If they are very different,then you won't be able to make them make nice squares in the corner areas. But if they are close, you can definintely fudge them to get a nice corner.

Well I see everybody is on board to help me, how great is that?! Funnily enough I had seen a demo of cross hatching on Allpeoplequilt but it was allover on an easy baby quilt of square blocks, so just follow the corners which didn't help me at all. I love the look of this method only I will have to go back again (and maybe again!) to see how to actually machine it and to understand why that method gives you a train wreck in the corners, so far I have fudged one corner and it looks okayish and cross hatched normally - at least it will to my non-quilty sister recipient. I feel like the guy in the joke now - Yes, boss but you only told me once! Thank goodness videos can go again and again. Reetzbobeetz, I wasn't going to mention it but the lady demoing this immediately reminded me of the one I saw on a Fat Quarter Shop video explaining how to use a marvellous ruler for making perfect prairie points and no folding little bits of cloth. Prairie points are borders aren't they. She looks just like her but on the Fat Quarter video she is sort of over the top Texan or something, really cute and funny about learning shortcuts as you get older and time is shorter. Or maybe it is just the paper you remember? Because I have a memory tickle of that. Thanks so much everyone - and on a Sunday too!

CarrieG wrote:
Ah, that would account for it!

Thanks Margo, I knew I had seen it somewhere. I must go and have a look at that again. It's such a simple and foolproof method isn't it? I wish I could remember it!

I'm not sure how it was used in the show, but it's a good method for measuring for placing quilting motifs evenly in a border. Sue Nickels does this. It's also good for measuring scalloped edges on a quilt.

Reetzbobeetz wrote:
Episode 609 with Bonnie Browing! [url]watch/watch-shows/video/show-609-freeform-feathers-and-happy-endings[/url]
Check out starting at minute # 29

You're welcome! Would you all laugh if I tell you I am an accountant? LOL But accounting is not math, just numbers.

Thanks Carol - never too late for a no math method of anything! I have a distant memory of somebody demoing something like this on one of the shows....would it have been Bonnie Browning? Does anyone remember? It might not have been for cross-hatching but I do remember something to do with borders?

CarrieG wrote:
Thanks for that link, Carol! That is a great method for getting the divisions figured out!

Thank you so much! That must have been it, just that tiny amount and then some of the lines did not meet in a v at the top like they should. It has certainly happened to me with bias tape too. When I made it with that tube method and the last bit I cut just isn't big enough even though I drew lines 2.25"apart on the square. If the recipients of my quilts knew how much trouble I go to, to get things right they would be even more impressed! Who knew something so straightforward could be so tricky? Thanks for the help, much appreciated.

It might be too late for you to use this no-math method of cross-hatching, but I'll post the link. http://www.allpeoplequilt.com/videos/v/55531847/cross-hatch-quilting-no-math-method.htm I used it on a small wall quilt, nothing large and no sashing. Maybe it will be helpful.

Margarita, I do know that when marking multiple parallel lines that you want to be all the same distance apart and fit into a set space, it is better to put a tape measure or ruler along one edge and mark the increments using either pins (which I would do in this case) or pencil marks (for paper). Then repeat the same process on the other side of the void, and finally join the dots.

This is because I have found that if you just mark one line and then using the parallel lines on your quilter's ruler to put in the rest, you will get slightly over sized parallel lines (it can be as small as the width of the drawn line) and the discrepency is accumulative (gets worse as you go along). (I have had this happen to me when cutting bias tape )

Whereas if you mark the distances with pins, you can easily check that you have the right amount of divisions, and should you just have a small amount of gap left over where it shouldn't be, you can just move the pins a little bit along until you have lost the excess and the gaps visually look right. I ended up doing this on at least one of the borders on Caught Redhanded, to get the quilting to fit the distances properly.

Well... now you are going to understand why after 10 years I only qualify as a confident beginner plus I was thrown out of math class at 14. I measured the side of the quilt and decided on a 1.5" space which went into the number evenly, no decimals left over. Now here is where I probably went wrong, I started on the far left hand corner of the last border and began marking diagonal lines at the specified interval, after a bit I went back and did the opposite direction. I was putting the 45degree line on the border and I think my border line may not be as straight as my ruler. At the end of the border I did not meet the corner exactly by about 0.5" but I fudged it and one side is now marked. My sister won't notice but I want to get the other sides right. Should I be starting with a vee in the middle and sort of measuring off that? Also when you machine quilt do you go up and down in vees or keep doing one diagonal line in one direction all the time. See how I need to live in a country with an active quilt shop and a guild!! I hope I have explained myself all right, it's kind of hard to do. Can you help again, please?