Saturday, September 06, 2008

Back Talk

Today I had to have a heart to heart with myself about quilt backs. You see, I'm a boring backer. In fact I used to back all my quilts with muslin or white fabric, but that was when I was exclusively hand quilting. When I moved on to machine quilting I started using more prints and colors, but out of all the quilts I have made I can only think of two that did not have a back that was only one fabric. Yes, they are easy, but they are boring.
Posted by Picasa


What brought me to this train of thought is the quilt I am trying to get finished this week. My daughter picked out the fabrics, and I did the cutting and sewing. When I pulled it out to quilt it, I went to the fabric store and bought a beautiful fabric to back it in. Unfortunately, it was too beautiful and in the end I could not bear to use it for the back of a quilt and pulled a bright pink gelato out of my stash. There was just enough (I thought) for the back of this quilt, all I needed to do was cut a strip off the top and piece it to the side of the quilt to make it about 55 inches square.


After I cut and pieced my strip to add the the side I shook out the rest of the fabric, and discovered that an 18" square had been cut out of the other end! Oh, great, now what do I do? I could have gone back to my original plan and used the fabric I purchased, but I remembered having leftovers from the top, one of which I was thinking of using for the binding. Happily, I had not one, but two long strips of green fabrics from the top! I used those with pink strips, making a very lively and appropriate back for the quilt, and the rest of the pink I will use for the binding. And I saved the other print for a future quilt.

1 comment:

pchickki said...

Oh Pam...all of your work is so beautiful. Boring as it may be it always turns out perfect.

This one is really full of such bright cheery colors.