Don’t get me wrong, I love a great deal as much as the next quilter and I can understand the surge in people buying wide backings. Why wouldn’t you? They are good value and with the added bonus of not having to piece your backings.
I quilted a very large quilt for a customer that had used only the best of the best in fabric selection. No expense was spared. I was brought a wide backing. So I set out to square up the backing so I could pin it onto my frame. Guess what? It wouldn’t square up. There was literally no bias in this backing, which would make you think there was an easier chance of squaring it up. No such luck. This backing was completely bowed but I did my best with it and cut it….Big mistake! After I cut it square it was bowed so much I didn’t have enough fabric for some of the middle part of the quilt. Uh oh!
So what did I do, you may ask? I had to go online and order another wide backing, except this time I had to pay premium price for it as it was no longer available in alot of places. Not to mention the shipping fees.
I have had about 3-4 wide backings sent to me since that particular one and I have not had any problems with them but they all had plenty of bias in them so I had a better chance of squaring them up because the bias made them a teeny bit more forgiving.
Lesson learned. I will take wide backings but I’d never take a wide backing again with no bias in it. At least I have plenty of pretty backing fabric left over for some of my own projects.
