Creating a Pieced Backing with Unused Top Pieces

Last spring I had the opportunity to attend an event featuring Doug Leko of Antler Quilt Designs that was put on by the Cedar Chest Quilt Shop. I loved all of his quilts, but what I found most intriguing was his use of pieced backings. I’ve always wanted to give this a try. Here he is showing the front of the quilt. The photo doesn’t do it justice – it is simply stunning!

And here is the back.

Last summer I made the Merriment Quilt by Gingiber.

It’s a darling little wall hanging quilt with super cute little woodland animals in a panel. The pattern called for the 4 larger animal prints to be used in the quilt top, but there were also other little smaller animal prints in the panel and I didn’t want them to go to waste. I thought they’d be perfect to piece into the backing. I also had two additional little pieced blocks left over.

Math not being my strong point, I decided to do it the visual way and used my Fons & Porter design wall (https://amzn.to/32PXbpG). I love this thing. It has lines marked at two inch intervals and makes everything so easy to visualize. I guess that’s the point right? The top is 36″ by 40″ and I wanted and extra 5″ all around to put it on the longarm. So I needed a finished top that’s 46″ inches wide. The height doesn’t really matter so long as I have enough to get it into the Red Snappers on the top edge (and bottom if I choose).

I used painter’s tape on the design wall to show where the finished edges of the backing needed to be and just eyeballed it from there.

I’m pretty happy with how the backing turned out. I added the top and bottom 6″ pieces to it after I took this photo. Now all I need is my new longarm frame to get here and I can get this baby quilted!