Decorative Quilt Borders Made Easy

Quilting Cubby | July 19, 2016 | How To Quilting

How To Calculate Spacing Decorative Quilt Borders

Scallops borders on quilts and throws look beautiful, but to look nice you need to fit the scallops to the amount of length you have. Each side has to end either at the end of the scallop on in the middle of the scallop to make the whole piece look nice. Decorative quilt borders requires quite a bit of math! This ‘Fancy Frame’ ruler makes it easy to create nice even scallops without a lot of work.

The “Fancy Frame” decorative ruler has multiple size options right next to each other. These options help you “audition” the right size scallop by just putting the ruler next to the edge your work. The ruller’s slits work well with most quilting pencils and quilting pens as they have a good depth and width. The wavy side of the ruler is also useful.

Making scalloped templates out of cardboard works pretty well. This ruler is certainly much better than that. Not only it is faster than making your own template, but the edges don’t fray from tracing over it.

Use the wave to mark the quilt first with a handy blue water soluble pen, to see how the corners match up.

Once marked and looking good, simply run the rotary cutter along the wave.

Go around the whole quilt lining up the edge of the ruler about 1/4″ in from the edge. Use a dinner plate on each corner, again lining it up 1/4″ from the edge, tracing around it about half the circle…

how to match the corners for decorative quilt borders

… and then fudge a little to meet and match up with the wave ruler markings. Once marked, and the corner and wavy sides meet up okay, cut along the blue line with scissors.

how to match up corner when making decorative quilt borders

You might think you would have to do some major thinking and rearranging to get your decorative quilt borders right. Guess what? It just totally works.