Posted in Quilting
Now that you have made a few quilt tops, we are going to try to finish them up! Begin by measuring your quilt top. Measure across the middle vertically and horizontally as well as on the edges of the quilt. It is possible, even if you cut and stitched carefully, that your quilt will not be perfectly square (rectangular!) The first remedy is to see if you can press it "open" more. If you can not, you may need to trim it. Try to avoid that. It might even be better to have your finished quilt a little bit cockeyed than to cut off points and make obvious corrections.
Use a fabric with the same fiber content and thread count as the fabric used in the top. Prewash it and dry it as you did for the rest of the quilt. Press the backing fabric and allow it to cool before folding it. Remove the selvedges.
You want about 2" of backing fabric and batting to extend beyond the edges of your quilt top on all sides. If your quilt top is 35" x 50", you will want backing that is at LEAST 39" x 54". More would be better. That one is easy, because it's narrower than the width of standard quiltmaking calico. If your quilt is bigger, you will need to piece the backing or buy wide fabric intended for the purpose.
You can piece the fabric in either vertical or horizontal panels. You can use a 1/2" seam allowance here if you like or just stick with the 1/4" allowance that you are used to. I usually tear the selvedges off, so I allow myself at least 1/2" in the seam. Press the seam allowances to one side.
Center seams create problems in bed quilts. Quilts are often folded in halves, and having a seam there will gradually stress the fabric and sewing thread used at the seam. Instead, cut two full-length panels. Leave one panel full-width in the middle. Cut or tear the remaining panel and sew them on either side of the center panel. If your quilt is larger than 76" or so, you will need to cut three panels. In this case, you can just sew the three panels together and center the quilt on top of them, having the full panel in the middle.
Catherine Timmons lives in southern
Posted by Anonymous
