Pieced borders are ...

... kicking my butt!  On Saturday, I had my own little sew-in, and got all the blocks for the center of my March colour palette challenge top done.  In one day!  So on Sunday, I figured I could whip off the borders, and be done with this top in no time at all.  Hah!  I spent half the morning and all afternoon fighting with this.  I know the theory.  I know math.  I know what I have to do.  But for some reason, I could not get the math to play nice with these borders.

I calculated them 4 times, and got a different answer every time.  Finally I put some together. And none of the borders were long enough.  I'd used one of my intermediate (and incorrect) calculations for the lengths :(  So I unstitched, and added a couple of segments to most of the border strips (8 strips, and only 2 were correct - the last 2 I made).

Now I think I have all the sizes working for me.  But notice I have not yet had the nerve to cut into the 2 transition borders that come before the pieced one. I think I'll measure everything 2 more times, and sew the blocks together and measure a third, before I cut any more strips :)

This is all that's on my design wall today.  The votes yesterday were heavily in favour of this layout, so I've gone back to it, and I think this is going to be the one.

I had planned to do the next bock of Dancing with the Stars this weekend, but after fighting with these borders I didn't think paper piecing was likely to go well.  The happy news is that I rearranged my sewing room, so now I have easy access to the full length of my design wall.  See that box beside the design wall?  That's a new blind I bought last summer to replace the horrid drapes in this room.  Maybe I'll get that installed one day soon.

Check out Judy's blog for more design walls.