Nifty Notion Ruler Week & Link Party!

Welcome to another Nifty Notions Cut for the Cure Ruler week. I hope you are enjoying this monthly series. I know I love sharing my enthusiasm about these rulers.

This month I am doing things a little different. I am going to show you different borders you can make with the rulers we have gone over already. What prompted this? I joined the Swoon Along that I'm a Ginger Monkey is running. Instead of making 9 swoon blocks I decided to make 1 big one and add different borders to it. It started out at 48" x 48" and is currently 64' x 64".

I was inspired to try this approach when the Quilt Sitters quilting group at The Berry Patch did a border round robin. Each group was composed of 6 people. Everyone made an 18" center block and then the block was passed from person to person monthly to add borders to the block. Unfortunately the round robin started before I joined the group, but I learned so much from seeing the quilts. They all came out really nice. So I thought I would try something like that on my swoon quilt.

So that's where the idea was born, which carried over to this months Nifty Notions Ruler series.

Here's what the 48" x 48" swoon block looks like.

The first border I put on it was a 2" border in white to frame the quilt block. Then the fun started. I decided to use the Nifty Notions QST triangle ruler for this border. If you missed the tutorial on how to cut these squares you can find it here.

The first step was to figure out the quilt math to see how many QST's you will need. Thanks to @quiltjane and Gail at The Berry Patch I didn't make a big mistake. This is the first thing to do when making a pieced border. My quilt top at this point was 52" x 52". So I knew 4" QSTs would go into 52 with no remainder. I almost cut the strips 4", which would have been wrong since the finished QSTs would have been 3.5"! That would have been a nightmare. Luckily they set me straight and I made the QSTs from a 4.5" strip. Lesson learned...don't forget about that pesky little 1/4" seam allowance.

I also suggest drawing out the border on graph paper so that you know what color goes where and how many of each color you need.

Once I had the QSTs cut it was time to sew. Using this cutting method makes these QSTs so easy to sew together if you follow these steps.

1. Layout your QSTs in a row.

2. Take your first 2 QSTs, place them right sides together along the sewing line. Here's what to do to make sure the come out even. Line up the edge with the flat tab 1/4" away from the point at the end of the other QST. The flat tab is 1/4" so placing it where it fits exactly between the point edges gives you a 1/4" guide. This is where you will start sewing.

3. Starting at the place where the flat tab and the point meet begin sewing along the diagonal, remember not to pull or it will get wonky. It's a bias cut so it is very stretchy.

4. Finish sewing where the other flat tab and point meet.

5. Press the seam towards the second QST.

6. Take the next QST and place it right sides together along the sewing line to the piece you just made. There will still be a 1/4" seam marker both at the top where the point is and the bottom where the flat tab is. Sew the same as before and press towards the newly added QST.

7. This is what the seam should look like.

8. Continue until you have the desired number of QSTs in the row. If you need a straight edge at the beginning and end of the row, make one less QST and put a HST on each side. They sew on the same as the QST's.

Here's the QST border on the Swoon quilt. It's 60" x 60" at this point. I want to make it at least 80" x 80".

And what would a Nifty Notion Ruler week be without a giveaway?

This week you can win your choice of 2 of the 3 rulers I have showed you so far. That's a choice of the QST, HST or the 22.5 degree ruler! And there will be 2 winners!

To enter I want to see eye candy! It can be anything you made with fabric. If it has a triangle of some sort in it that would be even better. So post a link description of the project. You have until Friday the 17th at noon to enter. Then Mr. Random will pic 2 winners! So link up and be sure to visit the other links.