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The Back of Your Quilt is a Blank Canvas

Nikki · July 7, 2010 · Leave a Comment

I remember first learning to hand embroider, and my mom instructing me that the mark of a talented sewer could be found on the back of her work.  The back of my work should always be neat as the front.  It’s a lesson I sew by still, and I’ve extended it even further.  I always embellish the back of my projects.  I think it adds a nice finishing touch, and it reminds me of my mom’s wise words.  On the back of cards, I simply add a coordinating stamp.  Many of you have seen my knit blankets, that I back and bind like quilts.  And on my quilts, my baby quilts in particular, I like to applique the back, usually with something just as basic as the alphabet.

The Back of your Quilt is a Blank Canvas 3
The Back of your Quilt is a Blank Canvas 2
The Back of your Quilt is a Blank Canvas 1

Here’s a quilt I made for my little guy three years ago.  The front is a very simple rail fence design, which is a great pattern for a beginner to start with.  And, as I’ve told you before, I know my talents do not include free motion quilting at this point, so the quilting is basic “stitch in the ditch” straight line sewing: the perfect set-up for embellishing the back of this quilt.  I machine applique the pieces on after much of the quilting has been completed.  Yes, this is the more cumbersome way to do this.  It is much more difficult to get a partially quilted piece of fabric through your machine than just a simple piece of cotton that you will eventually use as your quilt backing, but I don’t trust myself to applique the pieces exactly square and then match that up with the quilt front while I’m basting.  If I remember correctly, for this quilt I finished the “in the ditch” sewing around the center 25-patch, then folded back the quilt top and batting while I appliqued the letters and numbers to the quilt back, then did the little bit of quilting that was left around the inner border.

And, here’s another great tip that I discovered while making this quilt.  Instead of purchasing stencils or templates for these letters and numbers, or trying to freehand draw them, I simply played around with my word processing program on my computer.  I found a font I liked and printed out a few different sizes of the letters.  I cut them out and placed them around my quilt, then chose which size I felt filled the space appropriately.  I then used the cut out letters as my templates, and traced them onto my double-sided fusible.  You know the rest!

Next time your quilt needs a little extra something, I encourage you to flip it over and think about what you could create on that beautiful blank canvas!

Enjoy,

Nikki, In Stitches

Other Possibly Related Posts from Nikki, In Stitches:

A Card Making Starter Kit

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Needlepoint, Projects For Baby, Quilting, Sewing

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