Never Underestimate the Border

First off : Prizes from the Fat Tuesday giveaway has now been sent to the 3 winners. The rest is in the laps of the postal deities.

And then the header.
I didn't come up with that beauty. A correspondent on a list did it, but it is brilliantly put, and oh so right. 'cause we do. Underestimate the border, that is :-)
I'm still quilting the Allsorts, and I'm almost there with the blocks. 5 more to go, and then all the blocks will be quilted !
Then "only" the border remains.
But ... the border is as wide as the blocks, so the quilting of the border equals another round of blocks. And this means, that when I've finished quilting the blocks, I'm not "almost there". Far from it, in fact. I'll still have about 1/3 of the quilting to do !
Good think I have taken it into consideration already, 'cause if I hadn't, this would definitely be a stalling-point.
So : NEVER underestimate the border of your quilt. Unless you're doing it in plain strips of fabric, sewing the border-blocks, or ... applique'ing the border will, in all probability, take you as long as it took you to do the blocks. And the same holds true for your (hand-)quilting of the borders.
With a 25-block quilt, adding a border same width as the blocks, will almost double the area !

... oh, and to not make this yet another non-pictorial post, here's a picture of Allsorts as it looks right now :


AND a picture of a small ... bag ? purse ? I made to hold my iPod :
It still needs some sort of button and some sort of handle. However, the hexagons are sewn, its all together and quilted, and it does hold my iPod ... and seeing that that is the case, I had better get going on the button and the handle, or else it'll never happen !