Recently I have seen several videos showing how to stitch piano key or beadboard borders while quilts are loaded on longarms. Their tips are good, but don't always translate to sit-down quilters like the HandiQuilter Sweet Sixteen and similar machines. I happened to be quilting just such a border this week and had my husband shoot some photos for me so I could share my experience. We also shot a short video, but I'm not much of a techie in the way of adding videos to blog posts, so that is posted separately to my Facebook page at
facebook.com/gypsydreamerquilts
The first time I quilted piano keys on a border a couple of years ago, I didn't know nearly what I do now. I was just beginning to experiment with ruler quilting on my HQ Sweet16. I was adding the piano keys outside a feathered border, filling the space between the feathers and the edge of the quilt, but only used the edge of the feathers and the edge of the border as guides. I believe I used the lines etched in my ruler as guides, but nothing to help me stay square with the quilt itself. My lines often leaned one way or the other, sometimes quite obviously. I entered that quilt in a county fair and remember the judge commenting that the piano key lines needed to stay straight. Lesson learned.
Since then, I have added piano keys or beadboard to several quilt borders of my own and to customer quilts with great success. Although I had quilted both, I learned only recently the difference: Piano Key are single lines spaced evenly like the keys on a piano. Beadboard are double lines placed close together (mine are 1/4" apart) and the doubles spaced about an inch apart, similar to beadboard panels used in construction. The quilt pictured below had several smaller borders and a larger outer border. I treated each inner border separately and then quilted the beadboard in the final outer border.
This quilt had a double outer border that I treated as one with beadboard quilted from the black inner border to the edge of the quilt.
I find what helps me stay straight is working with a long enough ruler so I don't have to move it while stitching the straight line across the border, and using various tape lines to line up my ruler with the quilt and adjacent lines. The HandiGadget 12" HQ Straight Edge Ruler is my favorite for quilting borders. Also, using the Sure Foot for my HQSS is important as the ring is taller making it more difficult for rulers to slip under the ruler and cause problems.
On the most recent project, I placed a strip of blue painter's tape
across the ruler to line up with the edge of the border I would be
quilting, and a piece of quilter's glow-line tape the length of the
ruler at the interval I wanted to maintain between the lines.
By using these guides and placing my hands on either end of the ruler, I was able to stay straight, even after turning corners and finally coming to the point where I started. My spacing was close enough without pre-planning or measuring the layout along the border that I had only about 3/8" to absorb between rows, adding 1/8" at a time every other line. When complete, that little bit of adjustment, spreading the lines out an extra 1/8", was not noticeable, and all lines remained straight and square to the quilt & border.
At the corners, I drew and later stitched a diagonal line from the quilt corner before the border to the outside corner of the quilt, as if it were mitered. As I quilted the double lines down the border towards the corner, I used that line as my guide to stop go back to the border along that line, and then meet those same lines after turning the corner. The effect turns out quite well!
Quilting piano keys or beadboard in borders is a great way to finish off a quilt! It can also help absorb any fullness in an outer border as you quilt. Use guides to help you stay square to the quilt and you, too, can have great results with this easy ruler work finish.
More snippets from the sewing room soon,
Liz
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