To sash or not to sash - bordering a block

When you have an interesting fabric, and you want to highlight the pattern without too much fuss, do you sash or border?

Sashing is a great way of separating blocks, for a simple quilt layout and if you are looking for a quick quilt idea this is a great way to go.

Simple to sew, I tend to cut my verticals to the block size and then have my horizontals as a complete strip.

The other way to highlight a block, very effectively, with only a little bit more work is to create borders around each centre piece of fabric you wish to highlight

In this instance I have used 2 1/2" strips to border a 6 1/2" square.

The size of the block and the width of the borders are totally variable.

One interesting option would be a finished square where the centre is 6"

border 1 is 1" and border 2 is 2"

(so 6 1/2", 1 1/2" and 2 1/2" unfinished).

The impact when sewn together can be quite striking. You can make it uniform as in the picture below or varied by alternating the border colours....... the variations are yours to create..........

Happy Quilting!

Brenda Marie