My least favorite part of making a quilt is getting the backing ready. I don't often use the large 108" wide fabric sold for quilt backings. I bought some for the Awash in a Sea of Blue quilt, but then also bought a panel to fit into the backing.
If you've ever worked with one of these panels you know they aren't square (all corners are 90 degrees) and the sides aren't straight. Look at the right edge of the panel above, you can see how much it bows out.
The first thing I had to do was figure out where the panel would fit in the backing piece, and what size pieces of the background did I need to cut.
Then I had to figure out how to cut the pieces out of the big piece of fabric I had. You would think that a piece of fabric 81" wide by 108" long would be plenty big, but remember this quilt is 66" x 78" and needs an additional 6" all around, so that grows to 78" x 90" Sure that looks big, but I'd need two pieces about 30" x 90" and two more about 24 to 28" by about 36-40". That was going to be a bit fussy.
So the first thing I did was to surround the panel with strips of dark blue fabric. This allowed me to straighten the edges and make it "square." Now that I didn't have to worry about how to adjust the backing, I could move forward.
An aside: If you have ever bought fabric from the Portsmouth Fabric Company, you know they TEAR the fabric, not cut it. This is a shock when you first see (and hear) it, but if you need a 90" long piece of fabric on the straight of the grain 28" wide, it's actually easier to tear than to cut. (Do YOU have a table 90" long?) So the straight edge you see in the photo above was achieved that way. I notched one edge of the fabric and let it rip.
I sewed the chunks to the top and bottom first, then added the long side strips.
TA-DA!
That's done!
One other thing: I did not expect to wake up yesterday to four inches of snow on the ground. On the first day of Spring.
3 comments:
Very little snow here this winter too, had 4-5 inches on Friday but most of it has already melted.
Mother Nature is quite the trickster. We have big winds again tomorrow meaning lots of trash cans are likely to be blown over before the trucks get through our neighborhood. Love the rich blues in Awash. And you are right about the ripping.
Way back when, when I first learned to sew dresses, I was taught that tearing the fabric is the only way to be sure of the grain. This was for garment fabric, to be sure the print was on grain and your skirt would hang right. I still tear a small bit, especially from larger pieces like quilt backs. Old habits die hard! But they were there for a reason. All of my skirts and curtains hung straight! :)
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