Hope this little story helps someone else from making the same mistake!
 

Okay, so I'm going to quilt my DH's quilt he made for a wonderful friend of ours who has cancer. Well, I decided to put the quilt top on the frame of our mid-arm and I thought there was a enough left on a roll of muslin left on the roll on the frame. I decide to roll the top and the muslin on the frame to make sure it was enough. Yep and with a few inches left. I unroll them and put my batting on and off I go. Well, you guessed it, I had a moment, I didn't THINK, surprise! I ran out of backing, someone "ME" forgot that the batting added into the roll would now make the backing to short! My DH says it's okay just add some more muslin to it. He is so sweet!... The worst of it for me is this is his 1st quilt top, and I know he is so proud of it. He made this beautiful nine patch on a 1934 singer hand crank machine. He worked on it for hours and it is absolutely beautiful or at least until I got a hold of it. I guess we all make mistakes and at least I don't think I'll make this mistake again! I hope anyway, I just need to quilt and stop thinking so much!...

Oh. I'm sorry to hear about your mishap. We all learn from our mistakes. In all honesty it's the emotion and thoughtfulness that go into a quilt. Congratulate your dh from me on making his first quilt. Picture of the top, please!

I don't have a quilting machine, so I am trying to visualize the situation...but I certainly know all about the backing mysteriously "shrinking"! Had the same thing happen to me yesterday.

I'd like to see the quilt too, please.

Alison

Would also like to see a picture.....and I don't think it is that big of a mishap, because after the quilting, no one will probably notice (unless you are like me and point mishaps out?). I wish I could get my husband more into quilting. He enjoys picking out fabric with me, so that is a step in the right direction.

Does he have enough fabric to do a piano key row with all the fabrics he used on the front to add to the back? The row could be the length you need to finish the quilt. The continue the theme with the binding as mixed fabrics from the front. He could even incorporate a label into the piano key row.

Don't sweat it, piecing is really OK. I've had to piece on the front when I ran out of fabric and guess what. No one ever notices. How about a picture of his first quilt?

Backs are normally pieced so I wouldn't worry about it. If you had realized before starting it was too small you would have had to add to it.

yep. this is really no big deal to the final outcome, but definitely a good lesson.

I almost always piece the backs! If you didn't like plain piecing in the muslin, you could add just a narrow stripe of color across the quilt, and then the muslin strip. I've done that a time or two and people think it was meant to be (and of course it was LOL). Congrats to your DH on completing a quilt, and best thoughts for his friend.