Quilt Along – Day 4: Backing

Hello everyone!  Welcome to the next step in our Spring Quilt-Along!  Today we will be working on making the backing, basting our quilt sandwich together and quilting it.

First, let’s prepare the quilt backing.  The Moda pattern doesn’t specifically mention backing size.  You will need 1 1/3 yd if you want to have a standard backing.  This doesn’t allow for very much extra room when basting since the WOF is probably 44” and your quilt top is 42.5”.  You’ll have to be very careful.

Ok, so I didn’t want to have to worry about being careful so I decided to add in a pieced strip to give myself some more room.  Here is a photo of mine on the completed quilt:

I took the remaining charm squares plus 5” pieces of leftover sashing to make a scrappy row at least 44” long.  Sew one long length, right-sides together, to one selvage length of your backing piece.  Use a big enough seam allowance to be able to cut off your selvage later.  Next sew the other long side of the scrappy strip, right sides together, to your other selvage edge of your backing.  This will make a cylinder of fabric.

Now, trim your selvages off and press your seams.  Finally, cut the backing fabric parallel to your scrappy strip.  The place you cut it depends on where you want the scrappy strip to lie.  Cut kind of close to the scrappy strip if you want the scrappy strip close to one side of the quilt back.  Cut in the middle of the backing if you want the scrappy strip centered.  I hope this makes sense!  I cut mine a little off-center so that my scrappy strip was a little off-center.

I’m going to pause here but next we will tackle making the “quilt sandwich”  (Backing, Batting, Top all layered and basted together).  We’re almost there!