Introduction

This is the eighth 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.

SAL8 - Full Piano Key Borders!

Piano key borders can lead to fullness in the borders, commonly known as "Lettuce Leaf Borders." The reason quite often is because the piecer meticulously follows the quilt's instructions.

This is not in any way limited to piano key borders. However, piano key borders exacerbate the fullness problem, The number of seams in the border can make the border stretch more and, thus, makes it harder to accurately measure.

This comes out "big time" with piano key borders. The designer, with their design software that makes perfect 1/4" seam allowances, does not quite jive with the real-life quilter with a real sewing machine, with what-ever foot that they have attached. The the difference in seam allowances can be quite striking. For example, given a piano key border consisting of 32 blocks, if one's 1/4" seam allowances are just 1/16" off, then that is a total of two inches over the length of the quilt!

For this example, on the right, we will use a three-color, piano key border.

First [shown on top], strip-sew them into a strip.

Next, [shown in the middle] cut them apart to their unfinished measurement.

Then [shown on the bottom], sew all of the ones that are equal sized together using 1/4" seams, discarding the unusual-sized scrap.

So far, so good!

Now comes the interesting part - assembly to the quilt body [represented in red].

The left-most layout depicts attaching the piano key border to the quilt where the border is too long as compared to the quilt [or conversely, the body of the quilt is too short]. Here, the solution is to remove "keys" or "blocks" that protrude beyond the quilt body. In this case it is the right-most blue block that must be removed..

The middle layout depicts that same border with the blue block removed. However, it is still too long. The solution?

The solution is depicted in the right-most layout. Here the body and the border are the proper size. This is accomplished by sewing a scant seam just inside of the border seams, for as many seams as is necessary, until the correct length is obtained.

If the border on the right were too short, then the piecer would have to start letting the seams out a scant.

In either case, that's a lot of work, but the results are a knock-out!. It is worth the effort.

However, what happens when the piano key borders are coordinated, and one can't just "chop off" extra blocks? An example of this is with a "Quilt Of Many Colors" by, you guessed it - Raggedy Ruth Designs.

In this quilt each block has a "color theme" in dark and light hues. Those same colors are carried out into the "piano key border" in order. This made designing the border a "mathematical nightmare, which had to be solved by our son Peter. However, once Peter solved the mathematics, piecing became a "piece" of cake, so to speak.

But, what happens when a piecer undertakes this beauty. Well, that appears not to have been a problem as this quilt was one of Ruth's big sellers.

As explained above, the border must match without removing "keys". Thus, you will be taking in a scant or letting out a scant, depending upon whether you are long or short, respectively.

That's it for piano key borders. Now, I think I'll go play my piano.

What's Next?

The newsletter prefixed "SAL9" will be on a title yet to be determined! See you then!