You’ve spent hours cutting, stitching, pressing, squaring and assembling fabric.
Hallelujah!
That quilt top
Is done.
Be sure to give the same loving attention to your back. If your top is larger than baby or lap size, chances are you’ll need to piece your back (although you can always choose the extra wide Sew Batik backs and be on your merry way :)).
Here are the 5 steps to making a quilt back from 42 – 44″ fabric. It doesn’t include the steps for matching large scale or directional fabric. I’ll do that in a future blog post.
1) Cut 2 pieces of fabric that are 6 – 10″ longer than the quilt top.
2) Match the pieces together at the selvedge edges. Sew one side with a 1″ – 1.5″ seam allowance (I know, after all of those quarter inch seam allowances, this looks enormous).
3) Press the seams to set the stitching.
4) Lining your ruler along the stitching line, trim to a ½” seam allowance with a rotary cutter. Now you’ve removed the selvedge edge. Selvedges are a stiffer weave and may shrink differently than the rest of your quilt fabric, even if you’ve already washed and pressed it. Also, why tempt the needle to skip as it works through seam allowances and a selvedge.
5) Press your seams to one side.
This quilt back results in a center seam in the middle of the back. There are those who believe that quilt backs shouldn’t have a center back seam. If you hang out with that group, then sew the selvedge edges together on both sides in Step 2. You’ll have an additional step of cutting the tube open to create the quilt back. Your quilt back will have 2 seams.
Quilt backs can be as much fun to piece as the top. Looking for ideas for piecing quilt backs? Want more? Check out Kathy Matthews’ adventures with quilt backs.
Now that you’ve pieced it, don’t forget to square your quilt back!