Quilt Prep: Backing 8” Bigger Than Top
One of the main differences between quilting on a domestic machine and quilting on a longarm machine is the amount of backing fabric needed. All longarmers ask for the backing fabric to be larger than the quilt top, usually by 3-4” on all four sides. Why do we do that? I promise you it’s not just for kicks! Longarmers sew too, and we know the value of fabric and the importance of reducing waste. So let’s chat a minute about these 8” inches of backing so everyone is on the same page about it’s importance.
The best analogy I can come up with is a road. Some of the best roads have nice wide lanes and a shoulder for pulling over, construction cones, police, the community wonderer and his shopping cart, etc. This gives everyone room to maneuver and get to where they are going in the quickest, safest manner possible. As the shoulder shrinks, so do the safety margins. So think of your quilt as the car and the backing as the road. We want the road to be as nice, wide, and safe as possible, so we have lots of room to maneuver.
Let me reset expectations here a sec; these 8” should not be thought of as ‘extra’. They should be thought of as a longarmer's seam allowance. Even if you don’t see it in the final product, it is a necessary part of the process that gets used up in various ways. We use it to baste down the batting, it gets quilted into as we run the quilting pattern off and back onto the quilt, and we sometimes use it as a tension testing ground when we start, stop, and change bobbins. It should be your expectation, as it is ours, that this is our fabric to use as necessary to achieve the best results possible on your quilt top. There should be no expectation that this fabric will be usable after the longarming process nor will it be returned. If it works out, great! But let’s let that be a nice surprise rather than an expectation.
It is also important to know that your backing does not have to be exactly 8” longer and wider than your quilt top! We have many folks send us backings that are larger and we are more than happy to send back any extra fabric that gets trimmed off beyond what we need for our purposes. See our blog post about trimming your quilt for more info on that.
I realize this begs the question: what if my backing is SMALLER than the preferred 8”? Well, that’s a whole other blog post that I’ll get to later this spring. For now, know that we’ve developed lots of little tricks to work with small backings. Some of them might cost you a bit extra, and some of them won’t. For now, let’s focus on the why which might help you send backing that is the right size.
If you can picture the road analogy in your head and are good with letting go of the ‘extra’, then I think we’ve accomplished our mission here today. If you are looking for the nitty gritty of the how and why of this requirement, here’s a deeper dive:
First, before we even load a quilt onto the frame, I may need to use that overage to square up a backing. (Check out our blog post on squaring backings here.) While we don’t require backings to be perfect, there is a margin of error and it’s fairly often that we need to do some trimming so the edges are straight and square enough that we can successfully load the backing onto the machine.
Second, we have to attach the backing to the machine. There are a handful of ways to do this; I still use pins, (much to the horror of my more sophisticated longarming colleagues), but others use things like Red Snappers, magnets, and some even baste the backing to their leaders (the fabric part of the frame). Whatever method a longarmer uses, this utilizes an inch or two on the top and bottom of the backing fabric.
At TCQ, we always run the pantograph off the edges of the quilt top and into the extra backing and batting. This ensures there are no gaps in the repeat of the panto as well as gives us a margin of error should the quilt not be perfectly straight or perfectly flat. Depending on the machine and the pantograph we are using this could be anywhere from .5” - 1.5” on any of the four sides of the top. You can see how we run off the edges of the quilt in all the photos here.
Beyond running the pantograph off the quilt top, we use the extra fabric on either side of your quilt for a couple of important things. We often use it to test our tension. When advancing the quilt, switching bobbins, or after a thread break, it’s always nice to run a little sample area to make sure all is still good to go. We also often use clamps on the sides of your backing to ensure proper tension and stability as it is being quilted. We need room not only to attach the clamps, but then to ensure the head of the machine will not bump into them.
That’s the gist of it! Hopefully this gives you an understanding of the importance of this requirement. If you have any questions, thoughts or comments, please reach out!
-Lilo
