Enlarging Your Quilt With Borders

October 19, 2025

What happens when you love a pattern but it's just not quite the right size? It can be as simple as making more blocks, or adding an extra row.... or maybe utilizing borders might be the answer. We often think of adding just one or two straight borders, often a narrower first border and then the second wider border. Some quilts really shine with that traditional look. This quilt finished square and I made my top and bottom border a little wider to give some extra length. I used to worry that would make the quilt look unbalanced, but after doing it a few times, I really don't think it looks unbalanced at all.

I was very happy with the simple border treatment on my batik quilt called Warmth of Our Stars (by Scott Flannagan). It allowed the center of the quilt to be the focus.

But what if we want to add just a bit more than strips of fabric? I know I often have scraps left from my quilt and it's tempting to try to use those in my borders. I love doing that and love that it gives me the freedom to play with the size of the design to widen my borders into whatever size I might need.

It could be something as simple as combining some of my leftover fabric squares with my background fabric in a simple pattern to surround the quilt. This one was a win for me, I didn't have to use any large cuts of fabric and the bonus was using up some scraps from the quilt in the process.

Very simple border, easy to whip up and then add a focal block in each corner.

These next samples allows you to easily increase the size of the different blocks within the border to widen it to whatever size you need.

If you want something less busy, then maybe this traditional look will work for you and it also allows you to customize the width of the border by merely increasing the size of outer strips of background fabric (I have that area marked with an arrow). Then using your ruler to line up along the outer edge of the colored points, you can cut an even size of your choosing down the whole strip achieving the perfect width you need.

Plus it's a winner in my books because you can strip piece and then subcut for quick, easy assembly.

But I have also occasionally run into an issue when any common size blocks I would like to use in my border won't fit in the length or width of my quilt top. What happens if your quilt top measures 89 inches? 2, 3, 4, or 5 inch blocks won't divide evenly into that number, and I don't like the look of cutting the odd one smaller than the rest to make it fit. That's when I like to use focal blocks scattered throughout the border with intervals of larger border fabric cuts in between. That way I can customize it to work with any size.

The flowered fabric between the focal blocks can be lengthened or shortened to whatever length you need it to be.

You have the added benefit of selecting the width of your border by picking the size of your focal blocks. In this border, I wanted a very large wide border so my blocks measured 14 inches wide giving me the extra width I wanted. Then a narrow darker border on the outside framed it up nicely.

Then there is always the dilemma of needing to increase either the width or the length of your quilt more in one direction than the other. When I made this quilt, the center paper pieced deer was longer than the width, this was going to leave me with a narrow quilt if I didn't figure out a way to add some extra width. I had to play around with a design on each side that would be wider than what I added to the top and bottom. By adding the two little rows of leaves down each side, I was able to gain the extra inches in width that I needed compared to the size of the tree blocks used at the top and bottom. The top and bottom borders were only 12 inches deep but the side panels with the leaves were 16 inches deep.

Don't be scared to think outside of the box and experiment with some unconventional borders to personalize your quilts and make them exactly what size you need them to be!

Twila

We invite to you check out Quilts By The Bay Friday Night Frenzy live show on Facebook for a fun evening of great sales, new product unboxing and lots of laughs! Every Friday night 7pm Atlantic Standard Time. This link will take you to the Facebook page:

Click Me