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Corners cut on 45degrees

18 years ago

I'm making a bread topper for friends/family. It's going to be like a picture frame with a square for the center and then a border with different fabric with the corners of the border cut at a diagonal. The problem is I don't know how to attach the border to the square center and get good sharp corners. Help!

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Comments (6)

carolb_w_fl_coastal_9b
18 years ago
The trick I learned for sharp corners is to stitch 1 long-ish stitch ACROSS the corner - rather than stitching right to the corner & turning the fabric while needle is in fabric.

So you stitch up to 1 stitch-length away from the actual corner, lower needle into fabric, lift presser foot, pivot, lower presser foot & stitch 1 long-ish* stitch diagonally across corner, then lift presser foot & pivot again w/ needle in fabric & continue stitching normally.Obviously, marking the corners helps.I use very sharp tailor's chalk to make approx. 1 inch or so marks @ corners - or you can use basting.

*long-ish = 6-8 stitches per inch on my machine.

HTH
hoerlel
18 years ago
My understanding of what you are asking is a mitered corner. Is that right? I am a quilter and miter my corners all the time. This is what have done and it works well for me. I sew on each of the borders on the side first and then the top and bottom leaving a tail on each end at least two inches longer then the width of the border. I then take the piece and fold it edge to edge on the diagonal and match up the edges. Take each tail and fold them back on each other to match the folder and press with your fingers to crease it and pin in place on the creases. Open it up and see if your seams lay flat.

You can also cut the diagonal if you have a 45 degree line on a square ruler.

It works for me. If you still have a problem, I can copy the way I do it from a book that I have and post the picture on here for you to follow. Some people are visual learners and some are not. I am one of those visual learners.
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Original Author
18 years ago
Yes, I am definitely a visual learner. Id you can point me somewhere that I can see how it is done that would be great. What I am making is a Thanksgiving prayer & a border going around the "Thanksgiving prayer" section and I want the border to be like a frame for a picture & I don't know how to attach the border & have mitered corners.
hoerlel
18 years ago
Your project sounds lovely and what a nice gift that will be and I am sure much loved.

I am including a page below that has good instructions along with the pictures to follow. That was exactly the way I was trying to explain it, but my explanation was not as clear as this web page, LOL!

Good luck and if you have any questions you can always email me on 'my page'. Lucy

Here is a link that might be useful: Mitered corners
missliz1943
17 years ago
Help - couldn't find directions with pictures provided by hoerlel - are they still available? Thanks so much!
cmc_97
17 years ago
Here are a couple of web pages with good photos. They both discuss the measuring process for determining the length of your quilt border; your project is so small, you don't need to worry about that so much.

The instructions in the link (at the bottom of this message) are very detailed, with lots of photos, but the layout of the web page is odd -- not unusable, but odd. Scroll to the right to read the instructions.

This link:

http://quiltville.com/borderhints.shtml

...also discusses quilt borders. If you scroll down a bit, you'll see a nice photo of the "fold and press to mark" method that Hoerlel referred to.

CMC

Here is a link that might be useful: Quilt Frenzy - How to Miter a Quilt Border

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