Mitred borders!

The brain is such a mysterious thing.

I've been working at getting the signature quilt from our wedding last year put together lately...

 I've never been much of one to do mitred borders on quilts but after listening to Laura Coia, a guest speaker at one of my guilds, I was inspired to try to be a convert. Mitred borders add such a nice finish to a quilt. (Laura is from the Niagara area and does YouTube videos under the name Sew Very Easy....check it out!)

I've had a beautiful border fabric picked out but have held off since I was stymied on how to figure out if I had enough fabric to do the mitering. The added problem is the the fabric is directional. 

I consider myself pretty good at math, but for some reason couldn't wrap my poor brain around this! Luckily, a quilty friend had offered to come around next week and help me out. 

Now, back to my opening statement on the brain being a mysterious thing....

Saturday morning I woke up way too early and the first thing to pop in my head was the cutting layout to doing this border with this fabric! I wanted to jump right out of bed to see if the math was correct, lol.

Well, I managed to wait 'til after breakfast to put it to the test and everything worked out great....

 My only qualm is that I think the 8" border may be a bit too big....but it's staying! 

My first mitred corner was off a bit so I resorted to YouTube for direction....what did we do before YouTube?!....I guess we phoned a friend!

It was an easy process after all, and it worked out practically perfect....nice, squared-up corners....

 Laura Coia had talked about leaving the seam allowance very generous so as to add more stability to the seam and to reduce bulk so I did...it's maybe trimmed to about 1 1/2"...I like it....

I've got a fantastic skinny stripe for a binding, it's going to be perfect!

The last couple of days I did squeeze in a bit of time to get caught up on my 365Challenge....and some of these were indeed challenging....but so adorable! They finish as 3" blocks.

The first one looks a bit wonky, but it does look better in real life. I actually had to go back and sew the seams joining the wee HSTs a thread-width narrower to make them fit. The second, I wish I had made better fabric choices, but I've deemed it a keeper...mainly because it went together so well! 

This has been an amazing world-wide group project and it's so much fun to see everyone's blocks. My local quilt shop, Quilt Junction, has decided to hold a monthly "support group" to sit and share conversation about the quilt. I missed yesterday, but after seeing the pictures they posted on Facebook I know that I want to be sure to make it next month!

This morning I had some nice stitching time catching up on my Day in My Life hearts. I find that I try to prepare the daily heart regularly, but may applique them after I have three or four to do.

Here are this morning's hearts...

 

I am linking up with Kathy's Quilts to see what others are working on today for Slow Sunday Stitching. Kathy has an interesting question on what we like to listen to/watch/do while stitching. She has a link to a podcast put on by the "Slow Stitching Movement" (who knew?!). I listened to one of the podcasts while stitching at my hearts this morning, and will do so again!

Have a great day!