Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Piano Key Border

Yesterday I got back to the Wonky quilt and started thinking about borders. I guess I've decided to make a piano key border. Sounds easy enough right? Unfortunately I realized I've never made a piano key border but it shouldn't be that difficult can it? I checked out Tonya's blog and Bonnie's blog and Elaine's blog and got a rough idea of how piano keys are supposed to look. (Of course everyone makes them differently so I was still a little vague about my plans.) Elaine had the most interesting idea of sewing strips onto telephone pages and that got my head turning.

"Hey, I've got a whole ream of computer paper from the old days sitting on my shelf. I wonder if I could use that?"

It looked like a good width to be cut in half for a 5 inch border or so, so I got out my strips bin and started sewing.

Not as easy as I'd thought it was going to be since my strips started slanting. That's okay. This is a very wonky quilt so just even them up maybe at the end of the paper. Then I realized that I really didn't have all that many strips in my bin.

Okay, get out the roller cutter, dive into the stash and start cutting strips. So that was what I did for most of the afternoon. First cut a 2 inch strip. Good. That goes in a special bin for someday's quilt (I've used these strips in a great Pineapple Blossom quilt from Bonnie's website.) Next cut a 1 3/4 inch strip and that goes in the border bin. Next cut a 1 1/2 inch strip and that goes in the 365 Challenge bin (still adding strips to the week entries) and then cut a 1 1/4 inch strip and a 1 inch strip for the border bin again. I continued along this vein and was somewhat proud of my organizational skill. Actually I didn't get much sewing on the paper done for the borders, but my heart's in the right place!

Wonky quilt, I'm back!

7 comments:

Lazy Gal Tonya said...

woohoo! having the lines start to slant adds character. And it won't cause any problems because you're doing it on paper.

The Calico Cat said...

Neat, I love how you have skinny & fat piano keys... I used 4.5 x 2.5 rectangles for mine... (I call that unit a brick & have many on hand as I find it to be a handy shape in quilt making.)

Nancy said...

Coincidentally, I'm doing MY first piano key border at present! It never occurred to me to research how to do it -- I just plunged into cutting 1-1/2 inch strips and sewing them together, pressing, and then cutting to the right size, etc. I hope I'm not headed for disaster!

n, np

Elaine Adair said...

Oh, girl, I'm salivating -- can't wait to see the end product, but I love looking at all your skinny pieces, and imagining what they'll turn into. Remember, since they are on paper, they can be cut any direction, diagonally -- hurry up, hurry up - want to see that eye candy.

(I know, I'm sick!)

Have fun!

Marilyn R said...

I can't wait to see your finished quilt top either! I'll be watching for it!

Shelina said...

Think about how much time you will save when you are working on those strip quilts. You've got lots of beautiful fabric!

We'll be expecting a completed quilt tomorrow. LOL

atet said...

Your piano keys will be wonderful -- and thank you for reminding me that I have some that need to get started :0). Love your bootiful quilt and the lovely friendship quilt you made with your sewing group. Wow -- I have GOT to keep up with my blog reading -- I've missed so much!