Easy Quilt ( Part 6) Backing

THis is what it will look like with the three pieces together: 1. Backing on bottom. 2. Quilt batting in middle and 3. Quilt top.

 1. Cut Backing. Easiest way to do this is take your quilt top to fabric store and get them to sell you Sheeting. It is wide and sits flat.  This is about a double or queen size, depending on your finished size. The backing is about 94" x 60" approxmately. It should be about 3 inches or so over the edge of the quilt top to allow for stitching movement.  ( Remember this is just my way of doing this. Everyone has a method that works for them)

 2. Quilt batting. I use this Poly Down  . This is a queen size  bat.

 3. Quilt bat looks like this. I have also used the natural fibre batting. It is nice, but heavy and hard to sew through at times. There are several different varieties of batting. Talk to the people at the fabric store. They usually have a lot of ideas. Some quilt bats are only good for machine quilting. Others good for hand quilting. And still others are good for both. I am machine quilting this quilt, since  have  more details to put on afterwards.

 4. Cut Batting to be flush with the backing. Lay the batting on wrong side of the backing, with the righ side facing the floor.

 5. Lay ironed quilt top on the other two pieces,leaving a border as shown here. If you are going to hand quilt then  attach to your frame or hoop  and you can start quilting.

6. If machine quilting, use large safety pins to pin through all thicknesses in various squares to keep the three pieces together.  I like to roll up each edge, as shown, and pin together, so as to start in the middle of the quilt when I sew it. I've decided to do a simple swirly stitch going straight down the lines. As I said, I have plans for this quilt, and so don't really need to focus on a hand quilt stitch.I love hand quilting rather than machine, but this time it's going to be a little different.

 7.Pinned squares....make sure the safety pins are large.

8. With the edges rolled it is a little easier to work with. This time I started at the far edge of the open part of the quilt, then lined up my stitches to fall over the pieced lines of the squares. You can do whatever you want. So now you stitch through all thicknesses, being careful to keep the three pieces together and not pulling to the sides. And then we wil get to the fun part.....being a little more creative to turn this quilt into a more Victorian  style......