Borders: Framing Your Gypsy Wife

Borders: Framing Your Quilt

You have many options when it comes to borders or framing your Gypsy Wife quilt.  

I am wanting mine to hang in a certain wall space in the living room, so I plan to not add a border and do a simple binding to frame it and not to grow it any bigger.... hoping it will look something like this...

But I have enjoyed seeing how others have chosen to finish their quilts....

If I were to make mine larger, I love this simple frame with piano keyboard border.  The piano keys include many of the colors within the quilt


 

or you can add any variety of blocks to the piano key border for added interest...

 

Or blocks with background strips 

Another option is this simple frame with the extending background strips.

This zig zag border also adds interest.

As does the addition of flying geese 

However you choose to border your quilt, be sure that it compliments your Gypsy Wife center.

Calculating the Size of Your Border

Calculating border size is really pretty simple, but it does involve that pesky math again.  If you haven’t already squared up your quilt top, you’ll want to do this first.  

The length will look best if its proportional to the quilt size. A rule of thumb when you are starting out is to use either 1/2 the size of the blocks or twice the length of the inner border (if there is one).

Our Gypsy is made of various sized blocks. I suggest using the size of the larger blocks – the majority of which were 9-10”.  So I would use a 4 ½” – 5” wide outer border.  Using the smaller blocks in the quilt, my inner border would then be 2 1/2” or 2 ¾” wide.