What is the Best Backing for my Quilt?
Ricky says: Ricky Tims made his first quilt on a sewing machine he inherited from his Granny. He made his first fabric-buying trip by himself with little understanding of how to make a quilt or what the future held for him. With help from other shoppers, Ricky chose the fabric for his quilt, and enthusiastically carried it home, ready for his new adventure. It took Ricky only a few years to progress from his first sampler block to the unique and creative quilts he makes today. A look at some of his quilts shows that his path is sprinkled with the same traditional patterns that many quilters make, made with his creative flair. Ricky has ideas not only for quilt tops, but for the backing fabric for quilts, and during an Eavesdrop on a Telephone Conversation, he shared some of his ideas about choosing the fabric for the back of your quilts. Using a solid color for the backing of a quilt can create a beautiful whole cloth quilt look. However, if you machine quilt your quilt and you use a variety of thread colors in the bobbin, you may want to consider using an medium or large scale print. That way, the change in colors will blend with the fabric of your backing while enhancing the beauty of your quilt top. Another option for machine quilting with a variety of thread colors is to use a solid fabric and create a design that will look beautiful as "back art" on your quilt. Either way, Ricky recommends that you buy enough of your backing fabric to make a hanging sleeve.
During the Eavesdrop on a Telephone Conversation, and had a ton of great information and inspiration about designing quilts, machine quilting, and more. To learn more about this Conversation, visit: Note from Penny: The photograph on the right shows a quilt where the fabric used for the hanging sleeve is different from the fabric used for the backing. This happened due to lack of planning on my part, and running out of fabric for the hanging sleeve. In the photo below, I used the same fabric for the hanging sleeve and quilt backing, and made sure that the strips were facing the same direction. Without the hanging stick inserted in the sleeve, the sleeve would blend with the backing. If you used the quilt for something other than a wall hanging, nobody would notice the sleeve.
The quilt below is a quilt with 3 dimensional floating blocks on the front. I used one piece of fabric fo the backing of the quilt, and inserted the lone 3D block, just for fun. One drawback to using a light colored backing is that you can see some of the fabric from the front of the quilt. In the picture on the right, you can see a close-up of some of the quilting. I used black thread for the quilting design. Since the front background of the quilt is black, you can't see the stitches per se on the front, but they do show up on the back very clearly. In other places, I used metallic thread that shows up on both the front and back of the quilt.
Happy Quilting!
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This article courtesy of http://www.How-to-Quilt.com. ©2006, Penny Halgren
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