A Prairie Gathering Quilt of the Quarter ~ Month Nine

This is an exciting month!  Another border will be added, and our quilt is growing.  I'm sure you enjoyed the drastically reduced cutting this month!  Yahoo!!  

Construction of our Four Patch border is the first task.  I've had about half a dozen emails in the last few weeks about pieced borders that don't fit.  This is a very common problem!  The solution?  Hate to sound like a broken record, but measure, measure, measure. So much of quilting is mathematics....like it or not.  Our impossible mission, should you choose to accept it, is to make as close to a perfect quilt as your skills allow.  Unless you're willing to take months, if not years making the perfect quilt, it's not likely that each and every unit and block will be truly perfect.  

I promise you, the only truly perfect quilts I make are constructed in Electric Quilt!!  

That said, I do everything I can to be as perfect as I can, with skills and tools (if they truly help) to get me there.  Measuring is one skill that is paramount in every unit, block and quilt you make.  It's easy and the results are soooo worth it. Onward....

Your (on point) Four Patch blocks should measure 3 1/2 inches.  Sew 7 pairs together, press, then measure again.  They should measure 3 1/2 x 6 1/2 unfinished.  If they don't, you only have one seam to look at and correct.  Don't proceed until all measure what they should.  

Next sew two pairs together, press and check that they measure 3 1/2 x 12 1/2.  Repeat to make a total of three groups of 4 Four Patch pairs.  (You'll have one pair left over.)  Proceed to sew the border together, using the three 4 Patch groups and the single

pair unit.  Your border should measure 3 1/2 x 42 1/2 unfinished.  Repeat to make four Four Patch borders.

Sew two borders to the sides of your quilt center, press.  

Sew a Four Patch cornerpost unit to both ends of the remaining borders, press.  Sew to the top and bottom of the quilt center, press.

The red "chain of squares" will bend the corner nicely!  Refer to your pattern and check to be sure your quilt measures what it should.  Then, proceed with sewing the next plain border to your top.  

Here's what our quilt looks like after Month Nine!!  So exciting!!  You'll also be constructing some Shoo-Fly blocks and working on Half Square Triangles for the Triangle Sawtooth border.  

It's all coming together!!  Only a few more months to go!