Bounce Borders

So when you set out to do a new project, do you glance at the photo and start cutting?  Or do you briefly peruse the pattern and start cutting?   Or are you like me and read the whole thing from start to finish before you do anything else?  I freely admit that I'm a geek that way, but I am what I am. 

While reading the instructions for the Bounce border, I noted that Carrie mentioned that the edges may get raggedy, and if it is bothering you, you can easily trim it.  To make the border, you piece strip sets and crosscut them and then sew them randomly together.  Once again, the pattern allows for a variation--you can do all the subcutting the same width, or vary them.  I decided to vary, primarily because I knew I was resizing the quilt and I wasn't sure how the border would play out.  I thought if I have different widths of sections I could more easily fudge something if the border didn't come out exact.  I also really like the "playfulness" of the random widths of sections. 

 

So above is a completed border strip.  You can see that the segments are different widths, however, what I would like you to notice is that the edges are a bit raggedy/uneven.  It doesn't look too bad in this photo, but trust me, along the entire length of the strip, the edges were a problem.

 

So Carrie said to "trim it."  Hmmm, how was I going to do that?  I was trying to work out in my mind just how I could trim a very long border strip without it being too much trouble.  And then I remembered that I have a 4" wide ruler (that I hardly use.)  The border strip was 4.25" wide, so trimming to 4" should take care of those pesky edges without losing too much fabric.

 

 

I lined up the ruler to make sure that it was running down the center of the strip, leaving the excess bits on each side.

 

 

I also was careful to keep the straight edge of the ruler or one of the lines oriented over a seam, so the whole thing didn't go wonky. 

 

 

Then it was just a matter of trimming one side.  (Hint:  do this on a table or counter where you can access your cutting from both sides, so you don't have to move everything to cut the other side.  Just walk around to the other side of the table.)

 

Here I am on the other side of the ruler.  You can see the tail on the left of the first side that I cut.  Now I will cut the excess away on the right side.  (I'm right handed)

 

 

Once both sides were trimmed, I picked up the ruler to move it further down the border, again taking care to line up the ruler lines with the segment's seam allowances.

 

 

 

 

 

Another important hint is to be careful as you are working your way down the length of border that you don't let the rotary cutter run off the edge of the ruler.  I learned this one the hard way, but luckily my oops wasn't too bad...

 

 

This is what can happen if you aren't careful!

 

Once it is finished, it looks so great with the clean edges! 

 

 

 

 It left behind quite a pile on my mat, though.

 

 

 

So if you do trim you borders, you have to adjust the size of the corner square from 4.25 to 4".  That was a really easy correction to make and it made for much easier piecing.

 

I hope this helps you if you are working on Bounce.  The four inch wide ruler was a lifesaver.

 

Have a great day,

JoAnne





Bounce or Hubble?

The Another Year of Schnibbles project for October is to do Bounce or Hubble.



They both finish at the same size.  I couldn't decide which to make.  I didn't really have a need for either, but of course, need doesn't always drive the making of a quilt!  After considering things, though, I remembered that my niece, Alex, had asked me to make her a new bed-sized quilt.  She turned 7 and has decided that she is more sophisticated than pink and purple now, and likes other colors like blue, etc.

I decided to make her a Bounce quilt.  I made her a quilt for her wall back here using Me and My Sister fabric.  They have a new line out, Good Morning, so I got some of that.

Here are the completed blocks before I "bounced" them.

I needed to make this quilt larger, and what I really like about Carrie's patterns is that she has suggestions for doing so.  I'm making 56 blocks, for a 7 x 8 block arrangement.  I also used my 9.5 inch square ruler to trim them down (the bouncing process as you manipulate the ruler into different areas of the block to trim) instead of squaring them to 9 inches.  I'm not sure if you can tell in the photo, but the background fabric is light blue. 

Just what is the bouncing process?  It is quite fun, actually.  The blocks come together larger than needed and you trim them down in different ways to get the stars to look like they are "bouncing."

You can center the star and trim it down:

You can center the star across the ruler but have one edge closer than the other:

You can push the ruler all the way into one corner:

And finally, you can be really daring (which I'm not) and even trim it off-kilter:

The above ways are the basic configurations, but they don't have to be quite so exaggerated.  All in all, you can trim and manipulate the block into really varied  positions.

Here is how they might look when the trimming is done and they are all arranged:

What is really fun is that the trimmed blocks will now have their seam allowances in different locations, so when you sew them all together, you don't have to match any of them and thus worry about which direction they are going!  It made it so easy and fun!

Carrie also offers several variations.  I chose to use on large square for the center of my stars, so that the star is made up entirely of the same fabric.  You can also choose to piece the star center by making a 4-patch block of other scraps.  I chose the first option because it was easier!  Yep, I'll admit it!  Sometimes I like the more complex version, but this time I wasn't feeling it.  I'm glad I did it this way, too, because this fabric is fairly large scale, and the larger pieces let it show more.

Another variation is that you can make all the blocks one size, or you can make some a bit smaller.  I did do this.  Can you see in the photo above that the purple star in the upper right corner is smaller than the dark pink one to its left?  It is just that subtle difference that accentuates the "bounce."

There were some variations in the border, as well.  I'll talk about them next.  I plan to spend the day quilting my Speck so it is ready for this month's parade.

Have a great day!
JoAnne