Curved Echo Border Tutorial

I've had a few requests for a tutorial on how to do the Curved Echo border design. First I need to clarify that I did not create this design, Raylene Smith shared a pictures of one of her quilts on a quilting forum with this design in the borders.  This is one of my favorite border designs and it is surprisingly simple to do.

Here is a picture of Robins quilt, it was the first quilt I tried this design on.

You will need a curved ruler, I don't think it matters what brand as long as it has 1/4" markings along the curve. I use Deloa's Boomerang rulers and what size you use depends on the width of the border and scale you want to create your design at.   I will be give directions for quilting this design in the outside border.

First you need to divide up the border into even sections and I like to make it simple and use the center of the sashing as my divisions. Yes the first and last curve sections will be a bit longer depending on the wide of the sashing but you really won't notice that in this design.  

If your quilt does not have sashing then measure the inner part of the outside border and divide that evenly.  I have used between 9" to 18", it just depends on how wide of a border you have.

Let's say the spacing between the yellow lines is 10".  The blue line represent the center of the space and this indicates were to end the curve on the outside edge of the quilt. This will be 5" offset from the yellow marking against the inner border. I like to mark these blue reference lines with chalk on my border.

Next I like to chalk on the main 'Zigzag' of the design using my curved ruler. This is seen by the curved yellow line.  At the corners you just take the curve to the outside corner even if the spacing is not the same it doesn't really matter. This is one of the great things about this design is it works so well around corners!

 Once the zigzag line is marked it's time to quilt it using your curved ruler.

Once the zigzag is quilted I then fill in the echos and like to use 1" spacing.

Here is a sketch of the same information I drew on the picture above but the curves are drawn the other direction. This is to show you it doesn't matter which way you start to draw your curves just continue this pattern around the whole quilt.

Here is a sketch of the stitch path.  I backtrack along the main zigzag, seam line or outside edge so no need for stopping and starting. You can just travel in the seam lines or outside edge to get to the next curve section.

I took this set of pictures when I was working on my Mystery quilt. I wasn't too happy with the quality of these pictures but they show a good example of longer curves, I believe they had an 18" repeat.

Picture of the ruler when stitching the zigzag. I use the lines on the ruler as my guide to create the 1" spacing between the echos.

Here are the curved echoes chalked in to show you the backtracks and the finished border.

I find this design has the best impact when stitched on solid or tone on tone fabrics.

Also I would avoid variegated threads with this design because of the backtracks.