"Winter Blues" part 1.5

I've been busy cutting fabric for the new quilt . . . while cutting, I've been busy thinking, too. I decided to make a change (or two) to the design.

I generally don't add borders to my quilts. Somewhere along the way, I read one should add borders to a quilt "to set it apart from the wall." Well, with my quilts, I think if you can't tell where the quilt ends and the wall begins, why do you need my quilt on your wall anyway?? LOL!!

This time, I decided to add a black border around the quilt for the sole purpose of extending the pinwheel arms into it. I didn't like the "chopped off" quality of the outer pinwheels; I wanted complete pinwheels throughout. This is what I came up with.



I liked the look . . . what do you think of it??

A little later, I thought "if my quilt extends into the border, why can't the border extend into the quilt"?? I tried something else . . . in the drawing below, I used gray for the border to show how it mimics the pinwheel arms, extending into the body of the quilt. It also helps to define the shape of the stars.



Actually, this may be more subtle than the drawing shows: my actual fabric for the stars and squares is a black with gold stars and dots printed on it . . . I bought black fabric with mulberry spots printed on it for the border. We'll have to wait and see how it turns out.

Either way, I DO like the idea of a border that incorporates elements of the overall design in it. I think I'll call this an "integrated" border because of its mimicry as well as outlining shapes in the pattern. Cool idea, huh??

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