If someone is planning to send a quilt to be professionally quilted on a LA machine, is it ok to have the backing pieced? What I mean is that if one were using up their scraps from the front or had the back made from several pieces, would that be a problem?

I'm sure wide back fabric w/o seams is probably preferrable, or even 1-2 seams pieced in the same direction.

It's just something I want to keep in mind for planning future quilts. :)

Yes, it certainly is. It works better if the seam goes horizontally across the back as it is loaded into the frame. For my backs I prefer the outer edge to have as few seams as possible. If you can piece the back and put a border around that would be nice, but at least back stitch the outer end of the seams so it doesn't come apart on the frame.

Yes .. but you need to make sure with the person quilting for you. I use to do all my quilts reversable when I was mailing them out and she had no problems... now that I quilt for myself I understand why it is better for no pieceing on the back but it isn't something terrible. Just something to be aware of.

Thanks for the feedback...I'm glad I asked. I tend to put much thought into the front, but not always the back. I haven't sent one out yet, but when I make a "special" quilt, I will consider having it done.

It is definately ok to have a pieced back.

I even have customers that piece their backing in such a way that the back was as beautiful as the front. You just have to ensure that if you used a piece top as a backing that the borders are WAY large enough to make it easy for the LA quilt to easily center your top on to the the pieced area. (It's like getting to quilts quilted for the price of one. If you have any questions about this method you can pm me.)

I was always taught the seams going vertical would have less stress put on them. Is that still the general consensus?

Do you mean while quilting, or in general during use of the quilt?

I mean piecing the quilt back for sandwiching and quilting, you would have to determine top and bottom of the quilt to do this as most of mine turn out to be.

For me, piecing the back is certainly o.k. However, I advise my customers to sew the fabric with the grain all going the same direction to lessen the chance of puckers in the backing fabric as it is quilted. I just finished quilting a king size quilt that my customer had pieced the backing using 12 inch squares of fabric. She did a beautiful job of squaring the squares with the grain before sewing them together into one piece. As other customers came to pick up their quilts, they saw the back side of her quilt and complimented how pretty it was, not knowing they were looking at the back.

So I guess the answer is that it varies by the quilter and I should specifically ask prior to making the back. Thank you for the replies! :)