Hi welcome to the Final Stitch. I’m your host, Natalie from Missouri Star Quilt Company.
And today we’re going to be talking about backing. So we’ve gotten a bunch of questions
about backing from quilters like you. And we’ve gathered them together and we have
some answers. So let’s start with our first question.
Q: Ok so our first question comes from Christine in Utah. She says, “When you talk about
how much backing you’ll need for quilts and say something like 5 ½ yards, how do
I actually piece that together for my backing?”
Natalie: Ok so typically when we suggest a yardage amount on a pattern we’re talking
about 45 inch wide fabric. And that would just be your standard quilter’s cotton that
you buy on the yard or by the yard on the bolt. And it’s what you would buy for border,
backing, binding. It’s 45 inches wide. So when we say 5 ¾ yards or six yards, typically
what we mean for is to take that whole length and fold it in half. And I’ll show you that
right here. We’ve got this pieced just as an example. This isn’t quite five yards.
But when you open it up, so these are your selvedge edges and this is the 45 inch width
that we’re talking about. So normally what you’ll do, and in the pattern it will say
vertical or horizontal seams. And that depends on how wide and how long your quilt is. Each
individual quilt is going to measure a little bit differently. But if you have your 45 wide
and you put those pieces together, we normally are going to fold it in half like this. So
you’re going to want to stitch along the edge of the selvedge edge, make sure you have
at least a quarter of an inch or a half of an inch, whatever you feel comfortable with.
It’s an inside seam so you may want to press it to the side or press it flat open. That’s
completely a quilters preference. And then all you’re going to do is cut that fold.
And you can cut it with scissors. Often we will have someone hold the end and just slide
your scissor through. It’s super easy. But if you’re quilting by yourself, you could
fold that back in half and lay it down on your cutting mat and just, cut just the edge
of the fold off. Making sure that it’s nice and straight. Then when you open that up,
you’re going to have a piece that is 90 wide by half of the length of your yardage.
So if we’ve asked for six yards, this is going to end up being 90 by three yards which
is 108. So you’ll have a piece that is 90 by 108. And that works with all of the measurements.
Now if you have a backing or a quilt that is wider than 90, that’s when you get into
needing like three three yard cuts that you piece in rows.
Q: At that point would you recommend going to a wide backing and show us that.
Natalie: Ya, typically at that point, unless you have like nine yards of fabric lying around
that you want to use up, you’re going to get, at nine yards, your quilt backing will
be huge. And I think probably for less effort and less money you can just buy three yards
of a wide back. And we have, there are so many beautiful wide backs on the market right
now. Like you can get solids. You can get prints. You can get batiks, almost every type
of fabric has a wide back option available. And they’re beautiful.
Q: Ok and so what happens too, if maybe I don’t have something that needs a wide backing
but I have a wide backing because I don’t necessarily want to sew a 45? That works ok
too?
Natalie: Ya, oh ya. Yep you can always use that.
Q: Ok, awesome. So one of the other things that people sometimes ask about is directional
fabric.
Natalie: Oh ya. That’s really fun. So directional fabric is great. It’s beautiful on a back
and it’s really fun. The thing that you want to remember with directional fabric is
you can’t just fold it in half. You would actually want to cut those pieces ahead of
time and then put them together facing the right direction. So this piece right here,
let me get rid of that. This is a beautiful sewing machine print by Tula Pink, who I love.
And so you would want to cut your two pieces off in separate sections.
Q: Because if you fold it in half your machines are upside down
Natalie: Right, right. So half your machines will be upside down if you do it on the fold.
So then what you want to do is, you take your total amount of yardage and you’re going
to cut that in half and then put them together right sides facing, but making sure, so you
can see that this, this is the top of your little sewing machine set here. So you’re
going to open it up like this. And you’re going to line these up this way. So see, this
is still right sides facing and you’ll put them together like that
Q: And then you still just sew on the selvedge?
Natalie: Being fully aware, ya still sewing on the selvedge edge and you’ll end up with
the same size but with your sewing machines all going in the same direction. So sometimes
if I’m not feeling up to cutting the fabric ahead of time, I will just go ahead and fold
it in half and have one half going up and one half going down and it doesn’t bother
me one bit. I just, I like to think it’s quirky and it makes the quilt kind of reversible.
You can use either side. It’s just no big deal.
Q: So that’s another question too, when you have a nice big print like these sewing
machines, do you feel like you have to line them up magically or do you just kind of go
for it?
Natalie: I don’t personally feel like I have to line them up because I’m not really
worried about that. But if you did want to do that, you would want to find, you would
want to offset them. So you’d need a little bit of extra yardage. I mean I would say at
least an extra yard so that you have room to play with that. And I would probably try
to line them up before you cut, maybe while it’s still in one piece. And find the place
where they line up together first. Now the other thing that you want to remember is that
you’re going to have a seam allowance in there so you need at least a quarter of an
inch to a half inch of overlap. And you’re going to want to pin and just do your best.
But it takes a lot of patience, I will say.
Q: And it looks super cute.
Natalie: It does look super cute either lined up or not lined up. But what you’d want
to do is just find where the repeat repeats so you can see like these two hearts line
up. So then if you pick like an area then you’re going to want to put that right on
top of it like that. And then you can just pin that and stitch on top of it to make it
look like a, well there it is right there. So see how you’d have like a little bit
of hang off down here and a little bit of hang off over here, that’s the way that
you would be able to line those things up. And so then once you found this sweet spot
where everything looks really pretty, that is where you’re going to want to put your
pin in. And honestly if I was doing it I would probably press the line so that I knew for
sure where I wanted to put that seam.
Q: And then you could follow that line?
Natalie: Ya because then you have like a pressing line and you know that’s it’s going to
line up just how you want it. And I would probably not go this far in because I wouldn’t
want to use that much fabric. But if you can match it up here then you know that you can
pull it apart and it will still match up over here. So you just have to find like that place
that works, about like that. You know so you may lose, you may lose a little bit of yardage
on this piece but then not the other piece. You pick one side to get as far out to the
edge as you can. And then the other side you kind of just adjust until it looks right.
Q: Gotcha.
Natalie: Ya but it’s not super important to do that I don’t think because I think
having it, having it line up just like this is cute. But I also think that having it just,
you know, just line up like this is also cute. And I don’t think anybody is really going
to notice if your pattern is a little bit offset in the middle of the back of your quilt.
Q: Especially once it’s quilted.
Natalie: Ya it just doesn’t show up that much. So maybe if you’re making something
to enter into, you know, like the most amazing quilt contest you could ever even imagine
but for day to day quilting I probably wouldn’t stress about too much.
Q: Awesome. Ok so thanks. We have some other questions about the kinds of fabrics you can
use for backing. So I see you have some other fabrics next to you, can we use batiks as
backing? Is there a problem with that?
Natalie: I do not have any problem with using a batik as a backing. In fact I’ve used
them several times and they do come in beautiful wide backs as well. The tricky part with batiks
for me is making sure that all of my seams are on the same side because sometimes you
can’t tell the right side from the wrong side on a batik fabric but other than that
I treat them just like regular quilters cotton. They’re beautiful. They don’t really need
to be prewashed. They’re just the same, ready to go.
Q: And then you’ve got some smaller prints too.
Natalie: Ya tonal prints are good. And they’re great because you don’t have to worry too
much about upside down or right side up. You just piece them together.
Q: Our next question comes from Carol in Missouri and she’s asking about piecing backing with
a little extra. She says, “I have a couple of blocks I didn’t use on the front of my
quilt and I’d like to use them on the back. How do I piece the back so it will look beautiful
and don’t look like a mistake?”
Natalie: Oh ok, so this, I think, is really where pieced backings get so fun because you
can put a block, you can put a row, a piece from a, maybe a border type fabric, you can
do stripes, you can do so many things. Like it gets really exciting, the possibilities
are endless. There’s just a few little things to remember when you put blocks or labels
or different types of pieces on your quilt back, you want to make sure that you don’t
have anything that is trying to frame the quilt because of how quilts are loaded. And
that, typically that depends on how you’re going to have it quilted. So I do a lot of
sending my quilts to the quilter. And the quilters typically will load the quilt at
the top and the middle. So it’s top center which means that you can’t guarantee that
it will be a certain amount down or side to side even because it’s not always exact.
So when you’re doing something like that you either want to put it like straight down
the middle vertically or straight across the middle horizontally or off to one side so
that when you get the quilt back and it’s trimmed, if it’s a little to one way or
the other from what you had imagined, it’s no big deal because you planned it like that.
So let me show you a cute example. I have a great quilt that has some blocks pieced
into it and this is super fun. You will love it. So this quilt backing is quite large and
she had some extra tulip blocks. And they went right down the middle. And what I love
about this, so these blocks are pieced straight down the middle. And then right up here at
the top, let me pull this other side up so you can see and the bottom. The blocks don’t
go all the way out to the edge. So she leaves plenty of space for the top of the quilt and
the bottom of the quilt by adding this little piece up here. And really it’s as free,
it’s actually even more free really than making your quilt, your front, because you
can do whatever you want. You can add big pieces here or small pieces there. You know,
you can add sashings, whatever you want to do as long as you make sure that the part
that you want on your quilt is centered enough but not centered on purpose.
Q: Does that make sense? If you have loaded top center but you need it to be low enough
that it’s not going to cut off part of your block
Natalie: Right, right.
Q: Or trim it in a funky way that’s going to make you not happy, that will be the part
that makes sense.
Natalie: So one of the rules, probably this is what I would go by because we often hear
quilters say you need at least eight inches all the way around for your backing. I would
make sure that I didn’t have a pattern eight inches from the top or eight inches from the
bottom or the sides. I would just let that fabric kind of go off and imagine that it
will be cut off.
Q: That’s a good tip
Natalie: Does that make sense?
Q: Imaginary border
Natalie: Right, even though it’s not technically loaded that way so if you have the same amount
of fabric here as you have at the bottom, the top side is going to have more of it,
and the bottom side, it may be cut off completely. It really depends because as you’re rolling
those pieces of fabric the backing and the front roll at slightly different rates. And
the quilting, depending on how dense it is, will shrink the quilt top and the backing.
And it kind of just moves around a little bit. It’s like a, I mean it’s art so it’s
not going to be perfect and you can’t expect exactly the same results every time you do
it. So you just want to make sure that you leave enough room for those types of expected
changes, that you won’t be disappointed when you get it back and, you know, see that
the backing shifted one way or the other.
Q: So offset on purpose so that you’re happy that it’s offset?
Natalie: Yes, exactly. And they’re so beautiful, so beautiful when they’re done. I love it.
Q: It’s like a reversible quilt, right?
Natalie: Totally, yep with a back as interesting as the front. I love it. So I have another
one to show you that has a strip from a panel. This is a quilt that I believe was made with
a panel. So you can see all the beautiful panel squares on the front that are fussy
cut and gorgeous. And then on the back she had extra fabric and put a stripe of it straight
across the middle. So you can see that when she did this she knew she needed enough at
the top and enough at the bottom. And this stripe is not centered straight in the middle.
It’s closer to the top which is very cool. And I actually don’t know, you know, how
much of it was cut off when it was quilted. And it goes all the way out to the edge so
it doesn’t look at all like there’s any kind of mistake or movement. It just looks
beautiful. And it combines these two great prints. So she didn’t have to have, you
know, six or eight yards of one print. She was able to combine two different prints from
her stash or her collection and it just looks gorgeous.
Q: And it totally looks intentional.
Natalie: Totally intentional. It’s just beautiful. And it makes it just another fun
thing. Almost like a little quilt secret like, you don’t know what’s on the back. It’s
just as cute as the front. So I love that.
Q: So that’s another good tip, you can use a border stripe?
Natalie: Yes
Q: Or just piece two different fabrics together. There’s nothing wrong with that at all.
It doesn’t have to be the same fabric.
Natalie: No, I’ve done a ton of different fabrics. In fact I prefer to do that because
I like the backs to be funky. You know, just interesting. To me it’s a little bit more
interesting.
Q: Can you do that with something that’s not full yardage?
Natalie: Yes. Yes, one of my favorite quilts that I made a long time ago, when I didn’t
necessarily, this is one of my personal quilts I’m going to show you. I didn’t necessarily
have access to a ton of yardage but I had a lot of samples, like I had a fat quarter
bundle that I was working with. And then I had some other yardage pieces. And so I actually
just put together a whole bunch of squares of fabric and strips of pieces that I had
in my stash until the back was big enough. And it is so colorful and so fun and just,
like really full of different, interesting squares. So you know, the front is just an
easy charm square quilt and I wanted the back to be just as interesting so I literally pieced
them together until it was big enough to cover the quilt.
Q: That’s awesome.
Natalie: And I didn’t have a pattern, I didn’t, you know, you have to make sure
at some point that like your strips are the same width but that’s it. And that’s kind
of something that you can even trim as you go. Like ok, we’re working with a 12 inch
strip here and then we’re going to add an 18 inch strip and we’re going to add a five
inch strip and just until it’s long enough and wide enough. Honestly there’s no rules.
Do whatever you want. It’s super fun and interesting and cute. So one of my favorite
things about backings is that there really are no rules. You can be as creative as you
want and do lots of different things that are just variable from every quilt that you
make. So we are super excited to see what you guys make and I hope that you share your
projects with us.
Q: That’s right. So we talked about today vertical and horizontal seams. So you can
do one big piece if you have fabric. You can use batiks. You can use great big prints.
You can line them up or not. There’s no rules.
Natalie: That’s right, that’s right
Q: You can go all the way to 108 wide backing or you can start piecing with all kinds of
things and the best advice we have is offset on purpose so that it looks intentional and
that it is intentional.
Natalie: Right. And remember if you’re quilting it yourself you can 1000% line it up however
you want to but if you’re sending it off to a quilter it will go top center. So think
about where that’s going to land. It’s probably going to be two to three inches from
the top. You know, if this is the center of your quilt back, your quilt top is probably
going to land somewhere down around here and the line up those two midpoints and everything
else will get trimmed off.
Q: And then you’ll have this beautiful quilt and you can do anything. There’s no rules.
Have fun.
Natalie: Totally. Yes, lots of fun. Enjoy it. It can be as much fun as piecing the top.
Q: Ya and show us what you make. Tell us in the comments what you like to do when you’re
piecing and ask us questions because we want to have more questions from great quilters
like you for next time.
Natalie: Yep. 100%. We love to have your questions. Thanks so much for joining me today. See you
next time.