Saturday, January 12, 2013

Dark or Light borders?


I asked in my last blog about which border to use with the plaid top.  Unless a quilt is an all 'lights' I tend to choose borders that are darker in value than then middle of the quilt.  I do this for a couple of reasons:
 Firstly the border generally gets more handling than the middle of a quilt and so a darker fabric will generally wear a little better= show these finger oil/ dirt.
Secondly I think of borders like frames for pictures.  Darker frames tend to draw attention to the center more than light frames that tend to draw your eye out and away from the center.
 My cyber friend Leo suggested maybe a light linen for the border on the plaid quilt.  Well I did not have any linen but digging deep into my stash I did find a remnant from long ago ( I talking leftover from a college project, 35 years maybe?!) that I think is a nice medium and looks quite nice with the plaids and it's soft too, another of my main criteria when choosing a border.

Next up...My New Year's resolution!  Cheers, Claire W.

5 comments:

  1. This is such a fun quilt and I love how you took us through all the steps of making it. You could do a very narrow medium border and then a dark border that picks up one of the colors in the quilt. (But who am I to make suggestions, with so little experience!) It's a beautiful quilt, Claire.

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  2. Ohh I know what you mean by framing - but if you choose a light coloured frame - there will only be the picture to see and no borde to distract you from it ... I'm still voting for a light border.

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  3. how about a 3 strip border, dark , light, dark and you can even make it with strips cut the same size as the blocks strips on the outside of the square like a brick quilt but hanging vertically, get it???
    email me I could draw you a picture!
    lots of antique quilts have a white/red/white border say 2" of each color love that look when you can decide what to do , dark or light.
    Kathie

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  4. I think a very light border would look great and then a dark binding.

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  5. The border color works well with your quilt. I also tend to pick dark colors for a border. I am a plaid lover so your simple design in plaids is a hit with me.

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