Have you ever run out of fabric as you are adding the borders
to your quilt?

It’s almost worse than running out of fabric for the blocks
in your quilt.

There you are – the center of the quilt is done, your border
fabric is perfect – just one little detail. The fabric is
about 6 inches too short, and making the border narrower
would make the quilt look really bad.

Early in my quilting days, I followed the directions and
got all of my fabric before I started making my quilt.

Little did I know that I wouldn’t be able to find the same
fabric 2 years later when I was finally finished with the
quilt.

But there I was. My border fabric was also in my quilt and
I thought it had to be that way. It didn’t seem right to
introduce a new fabric as a border.

And, it probably wasn’t – way back when.

I remember so well, dragging the quilt and border fabric
to several quilt and fabric shops around town only to be
met with sad faces and apologies, but no matching fabric.

How hard could it be to find a light blue fabric to match
what I had.

Impossible.

And the ladies in the shops didn’t suggest that I use a
completely different fabric. They, too, were concerned
with matching the fabric in the center of the quilt.

To solve that problem, I decided to add cornerstones. As
I cut the fabric and sewed it together, it occurred to me
that possibly some quilter a few hundred years ago had
exactly that experience – creating the first cornerstones
in a quilt.

The quilt came out fine. The cornerstones ended up being a
great place for some nice hand quilting.

And I learned a couple of valuable lessons:

* I wait until the quilt top is finished before I decide
which fabric I will use for my borders

* I don’t limit myself to the fabrics in the quilt for
borders

Plus I have gotten fairly creative with cornerstones.

It seems like the possibilities are endless – from simple
fabric to small patches or blocks, cornerstones can be
used in borders and in sashing.

You can see some examples of cornerstones I have used in
quilts:

http://www.how-to-quilt.com/articles/1208-cornerstones.php

And you’ll learn what the problem was that I was trying
to solve when I added the cornerstones.

Happy Quilting!

Penny