Originally Posted by rivka
For the quilts I've made so far, I've either bought wide backing (108" ), or used one of the fabrics that is in the quilt and just sewn it together to make a piece big enough for the backing.
Having just rapidly grown my stash to sizeable proportions, most of the material that I have now is around 2 yards in size -- that's not going to be enough to make a backing from a single material, as I generally make larger quilts. And I don't want to spend money trying to find an extra large backing that will go with the rest of the quilt. So it sounds like I will need to start piecing backings.
For those of you that piece backings, what do you normally do? It seems like it should be a much simpler pattern than the front, yes? Do you try to match the front of quilt in any way? How intricate do you get with the back?
And for those of you using longarms that have dealt with this, is it difficult to make it so that the backing pattern isn't lopsided or off-kilter (on the frame), either vertically or horizontally? Any tips?
I'm not a long arm quilter, but I have done pieced backings and they can be just as nice as the front. I take the fabric choices that I used on the front. If you have enough to make long stripes,that looks good. If not, then blocks. I have even made the pillow shams reversible,so that way they will match the quilt's front and back. If you use straight stripes or even blocks make sure the quilt doesn't slip while you're quilting. I have made a crazy quilt backing out of the scraps. That way it doesn't matter if it slips while you're quilting it.