I’ll admit it. I love a creative quilt back. There’s something special about turning a quilt over and discovering a surprise. Pieced backs, leftover blocks, coordinating fabrics, and hidden design elements can make the back of a quilt every bit as interesting as the front. In many ways, it’s like getting two quilts in one. Wide-back fabrics haven’t normally been my first choice for creating backs for my quilts.
But sometimes, simplicity wins.
When I’m making charity quilts, gift quilts with a deadline, or simply trying to finish a project without adding another evening of fabric cutting and seam matching, wide-back fabrics are one of my favorite shortcuts. Here’s an example of one of my own quilts – where I chose to use a wide-back fabric.
If you’ve never worked with wide-back quilting fabrics before, they’re exactly what they sound like: quilting cottons that are manufactured extra wide, typically between 108 and 118 inches across. Instead of sewing together multiple widths of standard quilting fabric to create a quilt backing, you can often use a single piece of fabric.
That means fewer seams, less cutting, less measuring, and less time spent wrestling with large pieces of fabric on the sewing room floor.
Even better, today’s wide-back fabrics are nothing like the limited selections we saw years ago. Modern wide-backs are available in beautiful florals, elegant tone-on-tones, modern geometric prints, batiks, scenic designs, textures, novelty prints, and rich solids. They’re produced by many of the same manufacturers we already trust for our quilting fabrics, using the same high-quality cottons and printing techniques. I love the selection of wide-back fabrics that Keepsake Quilting has available – from all the major manufacturers.
Wide-Back Fabrics – can be the economical choice
At first glance, the price per yard may seem higher than standard quilting fabric. However, because the fabric is nearly three times wider, you often need far fewer yards overall. In many cases, a few yards of wide-back fabric can back multiple smaller quilts, making it an excellent value for charity sewing, donation quilts, baby quilts, lap quilts, and those quilts you just want to get done – now.
Let’s take a look at just how much quilt backing you can get from a few yards of wide-back fabric. The following examples assume a 108-inch-wide backing fabric and include a few extra inches for long-arm quilting and trimming.
An Eye-Opening Comparison
A 3-yard cut of 108-inch-wide fabric contains approximately:
108″ × 108″ = 11,664 square inches of fabric
To get the same amount of coverage from standard 42-inch-wide quilting cotton, you’d need approximately:
11,664 ÷ 42 = 278 inches (7.7 yards)
In other words:
3 yards of 108-inch-wide fabric provides about the same total fabric area as nearly 8 yards of standard-width quilting fabric.
That’s why the price tag can be misleading. While the per-yard cost is higher, you’re purchasing far more usable fabric with each yard.
One of the best parts of quilting is choosing where to spend your time. Sometimes that means creating an elaborate pieced backing that tells its own story. Other times it means reaching for a beautiful wide-back fabric, saving several hours of work, and getting that quilt finished and into the hands of someone who needs it.
And honestly? There’s room in every quilter’s fabric stash for both approaches.
Happy Stitching!