Quilt Back Styles

There are lots of different ways to back a quilt, and I'm pretty sure I've experimented with most of them. Today I'm taking a look at some of the different ways that I personally have backed a quilt.

Single Fabric
Single fabric quilt backs are the holy grail of quilting - there's no prep work and it's ready to go as soon as your quilt top is finished.  This is the reason that all my baby quilts are 38-40" wide - I can squeak it out with a single piece of fabric as long as I'm quilting it myself (long-arm quilters do require more overhang so their machines can grab it).

 

Blueberry Jam
I don't normally take a full picture of these because it's not really that interesting - you can see all the fabric repeats in this subsection!

But big quilts aren't left out of this category either - the selection of wideback fabrics, which are typically 90" wide, is bigger every time I look!  My favorite place to shop for them is Backside Fabrics, which has the best selection I've found anywhere on the web (not an affiliate link - I just really like them!).

Scrappy Diamonds (Post Coming Soon!)

Boys for scale - this quilt fits a full-size bed

You don't have to use quilting cotton to back a quilt; any fabric that is 100% cotton will work.  My Gypsy Wife Sloth quilt was backed with an IKEA tablecloth, and I've used flannel on others, including the Snowflake quilt pictured below.

Pieced Backs 

Pieced backs are the most common kind of quilt backs.  While there are more wideback options now than there were even five years ago, the selection of regular quilting cotton is so much more vast and fun and hard to resist for the backs of your projects.  I spoke with my friend Lauren, a longarm quilter who owns Tekstil Crave to get her opinion on pieced quilt backs.  She said that if you are doing a one seam back, it's best to join the fabrics so that the seam runs horizontally across the back of your quilt.  If you want to join your fabrics with a seam that runs vertically down the back of your quilt, it's best to use at least two seams.  More seams in either direction are fine too!  These preferences are based on how the long arm machine holds your quilt back in place; if you are going to be doing the quilting at home on a domestic machine anything goes!

One Seam Backs
One seam backs are the fastest and easiest types of quilt backs to piece.  You buy a piece of fabric as long as your quilt is wide, cut it in half, and then sew them together along one selvedge edge (just make sure you cut those selvedges off first!).  While this method is fast, it isn't my favorite way to back a quilt.  I tend to go for more bold and graphic fabrics and it's frustrating when an obvious seam takes away from the effect of the fabric.

Snowflake
Look at the middle - you can see where the pattern is a little off.

The vertical patterns match up, but horizontally it's a missing a light blue row - I didn't have enough fabric to do a perfect match so I made do with what I had.

Bernie's Mittens
An Instagram picture I shared to show off my best pattern matching ever!

Getting an invisible seam is possible with a lot of effort!

Of course you can also solve this problem by using a solid or blender print that is more forgiving than the geometric prints above, I just like to challenge myself!

The Stripe
One way to avoid the problem of matching seams is to piece a stripe in your quilt back.  Buy a piece of fabric that is long enough for the back of your quilt in one direction, then make a cut to separate it in the direction that is too short.  Mine is almost always off-center because the back is more stable if the seam doesn't fall where the quilt will be folded.  Then fill that gap with whatever you want so that the back is big enough for the entire quilt.  You can go plain or fancy with that filling, and the fabric in it can come from just about anywhere.  I've used fabric from my stash, extra fabric from the quilt top, and fabric bought specifically for the back.

Rockets in the Snow

A classic single-fabric stripe to extend the length of fabric.

The yellow stripe was a half-yard cut of fabric that I cut in half and pieced to make a longer stripe.

Range
This stripe uses scraps from the front to mimic the design on the back.

Sparrow Party

The vertical navy stripes let me avoid doing an invisible match on the number print.

Scrappy Quilt Backs
A quilt back is also a great way to get rid of odd pieces of fabric.  Start with a plan or focal point and build your quilt back around that.  Most of my scrappy backs start with orphan or test quilt blocks made from the front of the quilt and add in pieces of fabric that have been hanging around forever.  Piecing a back like this can take a long time, but the end result is so happy and fun I never regret doing it!  All the examples in this section were quilted on my domestic machine - you should talk to your longarm quilter before doing this to find out if your scrappy dream will work on their machine before sending it in.

Sunshine Quilt
I started with an extra quilt block and built around it with pieces of fabric from my stash.
The large gray piece on the left is one of those awkward off-cuts from a one-seam quilt back!

Forgotten Fat Quarter
I started with a too-short row from the front of this quilt, then dug through my stash for pieces of gray fabric (the theme of the quilt).  I found three large pieces and a lot of smaller ones!

At least six pieces of fabric in the overly pieced section are leftovers from other quilt backs.

Custom Quilt Backs
Finally, you can design your quilt back to compliment your quilt front.  It's hard to give direction here, because a custom quilt back relies heavily on the front of your quilt.  Do you have leftover blocks you want to incorporate meaningfully?  Do you want to do a design with leftover fabric?  Is there other fabric that you just want to have fun sewing with?

Ricochet
The construction method for the quilt blocks resulted in an extra hourglass in each fabric.
I built my quilt back around these extra blocks using stashed fabric.

Garden Quilt
This quilt has an extra-wide stripe with pieced blocks that tell a story about the very traditional quilt top.

Chalk Stars
A stripe back that looks fancier because the fabric in and below the stripe match.

Garden Stars

A giant nine-patch back that shows off all the fabric used on the front!

I hope I've inspired you to try something new when it comes to finishing your next quilt!