zozee

Should be fine as long as the seams aren’t right on top of frontside seams. (You’d almost have to plan it for that to hapoen, so not likely). Use a good thread and topstitch needle.

Jeanne S

I piece almost all of my backs to add interest and to preserve fabric used in the front design Incase repairs may be needed in the future—-matching fabric is right there on the back. I have never had any issues or noticeable additional bulk.

redstilettos

Thanks all. I’m really eager to try and will use some of the pointers given here!

jmoore

With the exception of a few small baby quilts, most of my larger quilts get pieced backs...especially scrappy projects. I have not had any problems but rent a LA for anything lap size or larger.

quiltlin

I do it all the time because I'm always that few inches short. A great way to get rid of extra blocks or smaller pieces of fabric. Of course I do try to make sure they kind of match the front of the quilt.

quilttiger

I piece a lot of my backings and have not had any problem with quilting on my midarm machine. I rarely buy backing fabrics. Hope this helps.

toverly

I piece backs all the time. I have never had a problem with stacked seams. The only problem with bulk that I have experienced is when the front seams are stacked in a point.

Iceblossom

I've really been enjoying adding in "orphan" blocks or leftover pieces of fabrics into my backs for the last several years. I usually work with scrap quilts and usually make more blocks than I use on the front, so it's a good use of them. Or sometimes I have a themed fabric in the stash that just didn't play nicely with the others on the front but not big enough for the back. I should take a picture of the back of one of my cat quilts that used a number of large pieces...

Recently I finished a baby quilt that was just a couple inches wider than standard width fabric. I had a really nice jungle print that was long enough and went well with the fabrics on the top, and simply put black strips (it had a back background) for the extra couple of inches on either side. I had to be rather careful loading it on the long arm so that the sides stayed even.

Like others who have already posted, I usually use at least a 0.5" seam with fairly large pieces of fabric and always press them open. But then I press all my seams open. I've used multiple pieced backs on my little old sewing machine and on a long arm. Although I have left them intact if they are short and soft, if you have enough width you should cut off the selvedge for the usual reasons (thickness, twisting, etc.).

I've been using pieced backs for years, it was that or sheets before the wide fabrics became readily available with no problems as well. You do want to avoid having the seam in the middle if you can, but sometimes that happens depending on the width of the fabric. Still, if you can instead of having a left and right piece, put a full piece down the middle and half pieces on either side going the long way. I've also used three widths of fabric going horizontally for king sized quilts.

Jane Quilter

I love pieced backs. So much more interesting. And I dont want to buy so much yardage for the back. Using up what I have, some orphan blocks, some fat qtrs and here we go. Only downside is you are not done when you are done. You have to "design another quilt for the backing", but then again that is the fun.....I have too many ideas than time to make quilts, so now I make 2 for one.

Boston1954

I have made a few and had no problem. However, I have to say that I hand quilt. I do not know how a machine would act though.