Sew Creative Quilt Backs
Add creativity to the back of your pieced quilt with a scrappy, patchy backing. The customary way of creating a quilt back is to cut two or sometimes three lengths of fabric and piece them together. Not only ho-hum, but at times it’s expensive.
Lately, my staff and I have been randomly piecing together quilt backing from the leftover quilt top fabric. I’m sure many of you have done the same. For those of you who haven’t, give it a try!
Back of the Quilt—Front of the Quilt
I only purchased one length of fabric, the print, the remaining pieces were leftovers. It took a little time, but worth the effort.
This quilt top is called the Happy-Go-Lucky Chevron Column Quilt from the Quick Column Quilts book. 
Look at the Back, Then the Front!
A queen-sized quilt, which this is, would normally require three lengths of fabric. Not so with this creative option.
The front view is a version of the Heartbeat quilt from Quick Column Quilts.
The Back Can Be as Interesting as the Front
A leftover column from the quilt front serves as the focal point for the quilt back. Notice how the quilting stitches really add to the design of the quilt back.
The face of the quilt is called Wind Chimes, another of the projects from Quick Column Quilts.
Make 12+ Bold & Beautiful Designs
The instructions for these three featured quilts, plus 10 more are all found in Quilt Column Quilts.
Bye for now,
Content in this feed is © copyright 2014 by Nancy Zieman and may not be republished without written permission. You’re welcome to forward the email to a friend or colleague but it’s not okay to add the RSS feed automatically as content on a blog or other website.
Sharon S
Nancy, I ordered this book last night and can’t WAIT to get it!!! Hopefully I will finish a couple of my “due this month” projects before it arrives, or they may get pushed back!! Lol.
maga
If you plan on having your quilt quilted by a longarm quilter do ask the quilter if this is OK to do. Not all LQs are happy about having pieces backs especially if some fabrics are turned so you have cross grain edges meeting straight grain edges and the individual pieces are large.
Caroline
definately interesting!
Amelia McNairy
This is an exciting venture, I especially like the leftover column and varying shade of gray, white, and black quilt backs.
Laura
I always make my back pretty like the front. I’ve never made the back of my quilts plain. I think it enhances each quilt and it can be used on either side. Most times they are so pretty it’s like both sides are the top
Irene Scott
Just be aware that the extra seams do cause more bulk for the actual quilting process. If your quilts are done on a longarm, the seams add extra thickness when winding the backing onto the rollers – the rolled up bacjubg can have lumps where the seams are, and thus not lie flat on the rollers. It will also not lie flat on the take up roller with all three layers on it, which can thus ‘skew’ things. Same for free motion quilting, where the seams ‘catch’ on the needle …can affect stitching if the seams on top happen to match up with a seam on the backing…..ask me how I know this 🙂
Nancy Zieman
Good point! We haven’t had issues as of yet.
Starla
When I started, I thought all quilt backs had to be plain muslin. Now I love making the back beautiful, too — another outlet for creativity!
Debra
I definitely am going to start piecing my backs to eliminate some the leftover fabrics that I often have. I wished I had seen pictures of these quilts from the Quick Column Quilts book as I would have purchased it when I was at the Quilt Expo this past weekend! The quilts are simple but striking.
BTY- the Quilt Expo weekend was awesome! It was my first trip there and I definitely will be returning.
Helen Stewart
I have made several baby quilts with pieced backing and have received compliments of them. I especially like the chevron quilt here!
Kim M. Harrington
I just did something similar but I put all the scraps on the front of my quilt. I made a very scrappy border. It was a lot of work, but I really love the outcome.
Marilyn Roberts
I was fortunate enough to attend Nancy’s lecture at the Expo this past weekend and also purchased the new book Quick Column Quilts I am looking forward to starting one of the quilts. The book is wonderful.
Marty
Columns are fun, easy & great for ‘odd’ leftover strips!
Bonnie Schoenthaler
Most of my smaller quilts are Linus Quilts. One that I made needed a backing so I used the scraps, It did not please me so I cut into that several times and rearranged the pieces until it became quite interesting. it was fun t do.
Diane S.
Awesome! I’ll certainly be watching for the show.
GJ Straatsma Pijper
Ik heb weleens gequilt maar daarna eigenlijk niet meer heb helaas de tijd niet, en niet genoeg ruimte om te quilten maar ik ga het zeker blijven volgen en misschien wie weet maak ik wel weer een quilt via Nancy Zieman. Helemaal super bedankt Nancy Zieman.
Greetings from Ina The Netherlands
Nancy thrift
Love watching your shows. So much I need to learn.