Introduction

This is the ninth in the series of emails based on Ruth Grihalva's April Power Point presentation to the String-A-Long Quilt Guild in Porter County Indiana. The title was "Piecing Hints, Tips & Longarming Issues."

Her comments are based on our experience with over 10,000 longarmed quilts in our 20 year history. Additionally, Ruth has published over 160 patterns, three books, and two tools under the nom de plume of "Raggedy Ruth Designs."

However, these newsletters are written by me, her husband. I am writing these from Ruth's presentation notes. Nonetheless, I will be sprinkling my ideas in, also.

SAL9 - Corners & Mitered Corners!

In this newsletter we will explore how corners, and mitered corners, in particular, contribute to fullness.

As mentioned above, corners on quilts need to create a 90 angle. I will focus on "mitered corners" here, as I do not have a graphic for regular, non-mitered corners. Nonetheless, the same principles apply to both types of corners: make sure they are "square" while you are making them and also after you have made them. Or, put another way, use good piecing techniques and then prove your corners are square using an appropriately sized ruler.

First, let's look at illustration #20, to the right. It has two layouts, left and right.

The left layout shows that the two mitered corner fabrics do not come together. Simply forcing, and sewing them together will create a non-square corner, which adds fullness.

This is illustrated by the left border lining up with the squaring ruler, whereas the top border continues upward, away from the ruler as you travel right to left. Please note that the small squaring ruler illustrated here should be larger in order to assure that the corners are square.

The layout on the right, has the two fabrics in a correct 90 degree angle.

OK! What causes the one on the left to happen? Ruth has a pet peeve with many instructions for mitered corners. These instructions are very intuitive, but don't match reality in their outcomes.

An example is shown in illustration #21. This illustration has three layouts.

Here the piecer is instructed to attach the two colored borders to the white quilt center, with the borders laying across each other, as depicted in the layout on the left. These are stitched down with a 1/4" seam allowance except for leaving 1/4" from the end for the two borders to meet.

The top is then folded so that borders are on top of each other, right sides together, as depicted in the center layout.

The right layout shows that the instructions tell the piecer to sew a seam that aligns to the angle of the folded white center/top.

Trim off the excess, and "Wah Lah," you have a perfect 90 degree corner. Or, do you?

Just as in the case of "corner triangles" made with the intuitive "sew & flip" method that should turn out to be 90 degrees, these often result in corners that are not 90 degrees.

The first two steps are correct. However, when it comes to making the diagonal seam, one additional step is necessary to replace the last step.

Illustration #22 shows two layouts. The one on the left is a ruler with a 45 degree line one it.

The layout on the right shows us aligning the ruler's 45 degree angle with the bottom edges of the two borders. Allow for the 1/4" stopping point of the border's seams to insure that the angle is exactly 45 degrees. This verification is done with an appropriate ruler.

In illustration #23, we show three layouts.

In the layout on the left: press your 45 degree angle seam open and verify that the corner is 90 degrees with an adequate ruler.

In the center layout: If, and only if, the corner is 90 degrees, then trim off the excess seam allowance.

In the right-most layout:Repress the final border's miter open.

The result? A few more steps, but the corners are correct, and a quilt that lays flat.

What's Next?

The newsletter prefixed "SAL10" will be titled "Pinwheel Pleasure"! See you then!