A Little Less Wavy, A Lot More Wow

Stop the Wavy Border Struggle! You’ve pieced your quilt top, pressed every seam, and then—those wavy borders appear out of nowhere. It might remind you of the lettuce edging on 90s style TShirts. Who else has been surprised to witness that style resurface recently? Here is a little info on quilt borders that can help you smooth them out.

Why Borders Go Wavy:

• Inaccurate piecing. As you piece your quilt some blocks or seams aren't quite the correct size, and I'm not here to police you on that. But when your blocks or seams are off in size here and there in a quilt it can cause some sections to be a little shorter or longer than others. This can affect your borders. I walk through this fix below by showing you how to measure your quilt top for borders.

• The Wrong Length. If the border strip is longer than the top and you stretch quilt top to make it fit the result can be ripples on the outside edge of the border. That is because the top tightens back up cinching in the border on one side, but it is still longer on the other. This fix is also learning how to measure your quilt top for borders.

  

• Alignment. Just sewing on the long strip of fabric straight on can cause stretching across the fabrics. Most machines don't perfectly feed the top and bottom fabrics through at the same time. It's not a huge deal across a small distance but with a border you are sewing long strips together. Often you will see this as waviness towards one end of the border as the quilter starts easing in the border on the end.

  

• Uneven pressing. Seams that were not pressed flat as well as running the iron back and forth instead of careful up and down pressing, can cause more stretching to the fabric.

  

• Bias Edges or Fabric Stretching. Blocks that have a biased edge to them can easily get stretched out of shape. A Victory Lap, explained below, can help with this.

  

The Fixes:

Measure

1. Measure your length of your quilt through the center and a few inches in from both sides.

2. Average those three numbers. (This helps balance the differences cause by piecing and seam and helps to ease the wave on the borders.)

3. Cut both borders to that length and sew them down the sides using the tips for Alignment below.

4. Repeat these steps for the Top & Bottom borders, this time including the borders in the width.

   
   

   

Align

1. Mark the edge of your quilt top and the border at the center and then in quarters, some even mark eighths. With right sides together (RST), pin or clip aligning those points and the ends, ease in any extra fabric evenly as you sew.

Cornerstones

1. If you have blocks in the corner of the border, before you sew cornerstones to to your border strip, measure both the width and height before adding borders

   

Press

1. Pressing the seam flat is very important but also lifting the iron to shift it instead of running it back and forth is helpful to prevent stretching in the border fabric or the quilt top as you press.

Victory Lap

1. The best way to help prevent this from affecting your borders is a stay-stitch (a straight stitch 1/8" in from the edge of the fabric) on the edge of the bias or the full edge of the quilt to prevent stretching as you pin and sew. ✨ Stay-Stitching the full edge of the quilt is known as the Victory Lap!

   

Already attached and wavy?

• Give your border a good press with starch or steam, working gently from the center out.

• Worst case, unpick and reattach using the measurement method—it is worth it for those crisp, flat edges.

Flat borders help a quilt drape and lay nice and flat, but in the end, if they have a little wave, remember that most people aren't going to reject snuggling up into it and instead of pointing out the imperfections, stand back and let others admire all your hard work!