Fleece Backing....Do You Quilt?
 

I am thinking of using a fleece backing on a couple of my quilts. Main question: do you quilt the quilt or do you tie? How do you bind and with cotton or fleece?

TIA

We made one quilt with a fleece back and we quilted it on our short arm. It quilted very nicely and we had almost no lint.

I did my first top that was fleece for a backing and no batting about a year or so ago, it was fine to work with. It was a child's quilt with sailboats and I quilted it with an all-over clamshell pattern that was probably 6-8" point to point. I think that I would still prefer to have a thin layer of something between the top and fleece, especially if you have a light top and a boldly printed fleece back.

I use fleece on quite a few quilts but I do put batting in mine and machine quilt after. I use coordinating cotton fabric for the binding (I cut mine at 2½")

I use fleece on many donation quilts, no batting. Usually, I sew rights sides together leaving a small opening to turn the quilt. Sew along the edge, then quilt as desired. You can also bind using the fleece pulled around to the fron to make the border. Because fleece does not ravel, you don't have to turn an edge under. Use a zigzag or decorative stitch.

Thank you for asking this question, Anita! I have been wondering about using fleece for the back also! 😁

I forgot to say that you really need to do some quilting or the fleece will seperate from the top during washing and become a lumpy mess.

I've never used fleece. Reading this makes me wonder ... has anyone tried piecing fleece like you would cotton? I'm thinking the seams would be too bulky though.

My girls love soft cuddly throws so using fleece as a backing might be a good compromise for a quilt.

When I've used fleece, I just FMQ just like a normal quilt. I used cotton for the binding.

i've done it alot, about 35-40 quilts. I did hand quilt, and zig zaged the edges, and bound as usual.

I did 4 lapquilts last Christmas for the kids and used a minky type back on all. They worked great on the long arm (just get the stretch side-to-side) and I bound with regular cotton.

I have made three like this. I quilt them in my usual way, which is on an embroidery machine using designs that are meant for quilting. Usually they're a single run of stitches similar to what we would do on a sewing machine. I was pleasantly surprised when I tried it because I had no problems with stretching, and the stitching shows up nicely on the fleece side. An additional benefit is the nice way they drape over a couch. They are cuddly.

Editing because I forgot to say that I bound mine just as I would other quilts.

I recently backed a quilt in fleece. I took my quilt to a long armer to be quilted. The fleece makes the quilting stand out. It's a poofy look, which was great for a kid's quilt. However my mom did the binding for me from the same quilting cotton used on the quilt top. According to her, using a fleece backing made the binding difficult because of the thickness and because you can't get your iron as hot with fleece. Also, we had to cut much wider binding strips to account for the thickness of the fleece.

I have done alot of quilts with fleece backing .. and minky. I used batting and quilted as normal. I didn't have any problems. I bound as I would any other quilt with 2-1/2" strips

Like others, when backing with fleece, I use no batting, quilt and bind with cotton. It works best if the quilt is no wider than the fleece, since there is some bulk in the seams. Have never has trouble with stretching. Fleece backed quilts are super warm, so have not done any since we moved south 10 years ago. Even in NE MN, never needed fleece backing and batting.

Yes, you need somewhat wider binding strips. But why in the world do you need to iron when you're binding? If you want to press the binding before you try to apply it to the quilt, great, but after that, why?

I've only made a couple of quilts so far, but have used fireside fleece as a backing on all 4 of them. Three are queen sized and I quilted them on my DSM which has an 11" throat. I cut my binding on two of them at 2.5" and it was OK, but on the last two I decided to cut at 3" and sew it on with a 1/2" seam and I think I liked that better. Fireside is called adult minky. It has a nap, but not as pronounced as the minky. It's 60" wide so I seamed it down the back. I used a 1" seam allowance so they would lie fairly flat and the seam isn't really that noticeable. I could tell when I did my FMQ when I hit the double layer of fleece, but it didn't change the way the machine sewed. I really love it, and would use it anytime I wanted a quilt to be warm and cozy. I also used Hobbs 80/20 batting with no problems. There are pictures in my album.

My mom likes to do the binding on the machine and with glue basting. You need the iron to set the glue.

Thanks for the feedback. Quilt is still waiting to be finished - it's in my stack of PhDs for now.

I quilt my quilts with fleece and Minky backs. They are beautiful quilted. I generally bind with cotton ( cut a bit wider than usual) but I have folded over to the front fleece backing and stitched for binding a few times.

I have done many fleece backed quits (and one minky) fleece quilts very nicely and all mine have been quilted. As for the binding I have done several types, cotton (normal binding), curved binding (bias cut cotton), self binding bringing the fleece backing to the front, and fringed binding (fringing the fleece) all have worked well.