Ep. 205: Backing Fabric, Batting & Basting

[Music] hi I'm Nancy Ralph's mom with on points tutorials tips and tours we're gonna start today with a really short little tip on how I picked the backing fabric for my quilt so this is the quilt that we've been working on for some time I've got the quilt top all done and now it's time to get the quilt ready for quilting so before I pick my backing fabric I choose the threads that I'm gonna quilt the quilt with now this quilt will have some invisible threads but I want to do some colors too so I went to some of my thread stash I find thread to be very exciting so I love buying them in little kits where they're all together and they're a whole family and they come in cute little packages like this so anyways I went to pull the threads to decide what my backing was going to be and I pulled out this kit and I decided that on this quilt I would use some of this purple thread so I'll take the purple thread and just randomly unroll it onto the quilt I thought the blue thread would look really nice in these gray areas and would work well with the butterfly the green thread for the green parts in the quilt so you see I just take the quilt the threads and just unravel them onto the quilt sometimes I'll even do that in a store I'll be at a store trying to decide what my backing fabric will be well first I'll take my thread take it off and lay it onto the quilt like this so now I know that on this quilt I'm gonna use some purple green teal and red now I pick my backing because once I know what my top threads are gonna be I have some idea what my bobbin threads are gonna be my bobbin threads are gonna be something that matches these threads so that means my backing fabric needs to be a fabric that will also coordinate well with these colors so I went to my stash and for the most part I pulled fabrics from the leftovers of this quilt and I just started pulling out colors and pulling the fabrics and I thought that this made a really nice pieced back and I know that all of these threads will work on this backing fabric so when you're ready to pick your backing pick your threads first knowing what your bobbin thread color will be then you can pick a really nice coordinated backing fabric hope you liked that tip for this tutorial I want to do a little quilt show and show you some examples of bad and good backing choices I've been doing this a long time and when I'm teaching especially if it's a class that's of wall hanging I'll ask the students well what you're backing gonna be oh I'm just gonna put muslin on the back it don't matter nobody will ever see the back of the quilt it's not true people will see the back of the quilt when you give it to somebody they're gonna open it up they're gonna see the back of the quilt and you want to have everything looking it's very best so this is a quilt that I made more than 20 years ago and this is my best bad example of what it looks like if you put a muslin on the back of a quilt so with this quilt I had to use some dark threads to put down the stained glass portions you can see every start and stop on this muslin it just looks awful now I've tried to keep it on the wall for a long time so nobody would ever see the back of it to the point where it it just drives me crazy I can't even hang it up anymore because I know what's on the back of that on this quilt I was using a lot of dark threads for the top so I should have chosen a dark thread for the backing but I didn't I'm sorry I should have chose a but dark fabric for the backing and here you can see even though it's a busy print you can see all the threads now not that that's very awful I mean my quilting isn't terrible but it's not really great either and I just don't think that it really looks its very best on this Christmas quilt I really wanted on the front of it where the kings are to have some really beautiful gold threads so that the Kings were ornate and that you could see that they were rich and bringing gifts to baby Jesus well the back of it I really didn't think that much about on the back of this quilt I just used an almost solid black and you can see where the gold thread peeks back all the way around this quilt all these little loose threads it just doesn't look nice it's gotten to the point where I really don't think a quilt is finished till the binding is actually on it and that means I need to give as much care and attention to the back of my quilt as the front of my quilt so this quilt is I think one of my best examples of choosing threads choosing the backing for your quilt by first choosing the threads on this quilt very traditional I knew I needed to use red threads here and I was gonna use white threads here well that obviously meant I couldn't put a solid red on the back and I couldn't put a solid white on the back I found what I think is the perfect threat backing fabric on this quilt the back of it is a small busy print of red and cream when I was quilt in those white parts I had a white thread when I was quilting those red parts I had a red thread and you can't see any of them so the backing is not distracted by the threads that I used this quilt I used some dark burgundy threads in this section I used some teal metallic threads I used gold thread on the bind border here I used a shiny gold thread well that been my backing should be a thread the wood heart that will should be a backing that covered all of those thread choices there's burgundy on the back there's gold on the back there's teal on the back you can't see it I also like the back of this one because I used a border print sometimes you find border prints and you just don't know what you'll do with them I love a good border print on the back it just makes it more interesting I love this quilt because it has a lot of fabulous shoes all over it I'm kind of addicted to shoes and thread so with this quilt I was gonna use a variegated thread kind of dark in color for my backing choice I have a small busy print so all of those dark threads you can't see them you don't see the design on the back you can see the design on the front now this next quilt was pretty special when you're choosing your backing fabrics an easy choice is to pick a fabric like this this fabric has got to be the supreme best backing fabric ever with all those colors all the small busy print you could literally use any color in your bobbin and you would never see it and that is gonna make an interesting backing but not the most interesting backings I believe the most interesting backings are the ones that you're gonna piece with more fabric it's almost like a whole nother quilt on the back this is a beautiful fall quilt that I made with the help of my sister Renee and after we got the top done I thought it would be really interesting to have a more interesting than just one fabric on the back so I asked my friend Gina to help me with the back of it Michelle can you help me come flip this quilt and when you're making a pieced backing it is actually so much nicer to have when the quilt is done so look at that Gina used lots of the leftover fabrics that we had from this quilt and using a log-cabin azure inspiration she just kept taking those pieces going around and around and around and you've got to admit that's a really fun backing the next quilt I have is really special and the backing I think really brings out the very best in the quilt so this was a berry this is an Amish quilt very solid fabrics nothing to you know well I guess it's exciting on the front but the fabrics themselves are just solid the quilt is really pretty and when it came time to do the backing my choices were to buy a really really large piece of a hundred and eight inch wide which I never would have found just the right fabric but instead I decided to piece it so I went again to my stash and I started looking through the fabrics this is what I came up with it has all the same kind of colors as the to the quilt had all the primary colors are there but that panel I don't know how long I've had it I just thought it would be really fabulous on the back of it I love the back of this quilt to me this is very inspiring when I look at the back of this quilt I'm as excited about it as I am the front of that quilt so now that we've talked about choosing the backing fabric and all the fun designs I want to show you quick steps how I actually piece and prepare my backing for a quilt so this is a quilt top that I made some time ago it's a simple pattern has a fun mitered border on it I measured this quilt and it's 55 inches wide by 70 inches long so to choose a backing for this I went to my stash and I pulled out this really fun gray and printed fabric so on this quilt I'll probably print with mostly grays and I just thought this would be a fun backing it's got fun zombie characters on it it's all about Hollywood for this quilt I took the fabric and I want my seen because if this is 70 inches wide I'm gonna need two pieces of fabric so there'll be a seam running right down the middle of the quilt the horizontal of the quilt so I took my backing fabric and I cut off enough that I'd have about four inches extra on each side and I needed two pieces of that so that I'd have the length that I need so this is backing it's gonna be about 84 inches long and I'll just be able to trim off what I don't need but I want to show you how I piece the backing when I piece a backing I like to use a like colored thread so I have kind of a dark grey thread in here and I use a smaller than normal stitch length because I'm going to press the seam open the smaller the normal stitch link will help hide the stitches so for this I used a 2.0 stitch length and you'll notice that my seam allowance is quite large that's about a 1 inch seam allowance and that's a 1 inch allowance with the selvages still on so I piece it right sides together along to salvage edge with the salvage still on with a smaller than normal stitch length then I take my scissors and I nip off at about a half inch so I've got about a half inch here of selvage and a half inch of remaining seam allowance and then I rip it I can rip it evenly because it's the length of the fabric so because it's the length of fabric it is going to tear perfectly straight and I just tear that right off now I'm gonna press it so I need to move my quilt top out of the way and underneath you'll see my pressing surface this is the type of pressing surface that every quilter needs to get this is a what they call a big board in quilting world it's about 22 inches wide 60 inches long I have covered it with a bone - reflective ironing board surface so it doesn't have a lot of cushion on it but that silver is actually reflects up so actually the heat works better on the fabric so and that just sticks right along my big board and the big board is sat right on top of my regular ironing board but you'll see now when it's time to press this I've got a nice big surface to work with I can pull off all the little leftover stray threads and I'm ready to press now we're ready to start the pressing I've got my Mary Ellen's best press to press this open I'm going to spray this on to my backing seam that's always where I start my pressing I'm going to compress the entire backing but I always start with the middle at the seams and I'm gonna press this open I press it open because I want there not to be that much bulk I don't want for when my quilt is being quilted for all the sudden that I actually feel that extra layer of fabric by pressing open I only have two layers of fabric so it's not gonna be that noticeable on the back of the quilt after I've pressed the center seam completely open I am going to completely press the backing with spray sizing if I am doing the quilting on my regular home domestic machine I like to have my backing fabric to just be a little bit stiffer if it's really soft and flexible when I'm moving it around my machine it's gonna kind of bunch up a little bit and I have found that if I spray sighs the entire back with sizing before I do the basting it just makes the quilting a lot easier now here's a little tip when I'm doing my backings when I'm spray sizing the whole backing which could be a really large piece of fabric I don't use my Maryellen spray supress it's just kind of too expensive for that that's one of the times that I go to the grocery store and get a spray sizing out of the laundry care section usually an aerosol can and I'll use that to use on the back of my quilt at that point it just made is more makes more economical sense so you picked out your thread you picked out your backing fabric it's time to base the quilt but before you can base the quilt you need to decide what batting you're gonna use there's a lot of batting on the market and you need to make an educated decision and for the most part I believe that you need to educate yourself you need to pick the batting that you think you're gonna use and make some samples of it until you know what is right for you and right for your quilt I can tell you right now my preference is going to be a natural batting so this first sample that I want to show you this is done my friend Karen Giles is a long-arm quilter so she needs to know what kind of batting she's gonna offer her customers so she'll make little samples so that she can show the customer this is what it feels like if you're gonna choose this batting so this is a single layer of wool batting now wool batting's are not all created there's a lot of manufactured wool bedding so these are a hundred percent natural they've been taken to the factory and somehow with magic they're able to take that wool and they strip the lanolin out brush it all clean put it all back together put the lanlan back in and those wool batting's are washable you can wash them in your washer dry them in low heat on your dryer these are not a natural bedding that you get from the sheep farm up the street these are gonna be processed wool beddings and there's quite a few different companies out there so this one is a wool batting with a single layer I love the wool batting when it comes to a bed quilt it's gonna give you just the right amount of loft it drapes on the bed it's just absolutely fabulous this sample Karen made has two layers of wool the most favorite thing to sleep under the weight is just perfect it's breathable I love the fluff that it has it's just wonderful but when it comes to a wall quilt or smaller lap quilts or more importantly if it's one that I am gonna quilt myself on my domestic machine I'm gonna stay away from wool not because I don't love the wool and not because I don't love the way it feels but because it is harder to quilt with wool on your domestic machine whereas cotton is a little bit more compact it's gonna be a little bit weightier and it's gonna be a lot easier to quilt on your domestic machine so on this sample I made it with a lot of different thread choices but you can see that after I washed it the cotton is going to get a little bit of shrink to it which kind of gives it an old-fashioned feel I love that look I love the holiness of it and it feels great on these other samples I did the same thing but here I did not quilt these large sections it's not right with a cotton you really need to quilt tighter you need to quote I'd say about one inch would be the most I would ever leave unquoted so in this sample you can see here where the quilting is quite tight you get that really great old-fashioned cotton feel I guess and up here where there's no quilting it's kind of puffed I usually call that the Jiffy Pop popcorn effect where that part just puffs up and it doesn't look right with the quilt but like I said before you need to make your own decision you need to go to the store buy different samples quilt them up into little samples like this throw them in the wash dry them like you would normally dry them and see what batting you like best so here is a very economical tip for your batting when I do my a lot of quilting I get a lot of these leftover pieces which really seem kind of useless and I found this product called heat press batting together what it is is Treecko interfacing this fusible on the back and this is how it works here's a piece that I've made a little bit bigger gonna take my batting strip lay a new piece down next to it take the heat press fusible side down and just like that I have made my batting even larger [Music] here's a tip on safety pins and closing the safety pins when you're using them for basting your quilt so these are pins that I like these are a number one size pin and a number two size pin the number one size is about an inch long the number two is just under two inches long I don't go any bigger than that pins that are larger than that just seem to get in my way when I'm doing the quilting this is what we call my pin bin this is how I store my safety pins so it is a pencil box that has a little piece of foam on the inside of it and my pins go in and out of that very smoothly so when it's time to quilt or when it's time to baste they're always handy and they're not in the bucket poking me and this is how I close my pins this is a normal seam ripper on every seam ripper the neck of the seam ripper has a wide side and it has a skinny side so that flat side and wide side are gonna help us close our pins so we're gonna take our pin go through the layers and you want the pin to be about three-quarters of the way full now your seam ripper is gonna go through with the flat side under the tip of the pin then when you spin the seam ripper so now it's on the fat side that's gonna make the head of the pin raise up and then you push the pin down to close it so it's really quite quick hope you like that tip [Music] so we are ready to baste our quills here is my backing it's piece backing I spray sized it all of my seams are pressed open I'm gonna try and find a large table to lay down the entire quilt top and then I'm gonna stick it down with the tape that's not gonna leave any residue normally I use a blue painters tape but we're in the studio and they have gaffers tape so this is not gonna leave any residue on my quilt then I'm going to use my 5:05 basting spray this is my favorite brand of basting spray it doesn't gum up my needle and it's gonna hold the help to hold the layers together so when you're spraying it on you're not spraying too much that's really the trick and you're gonna be spraying toward the center of the quilt for this next step my friend Michelle is gonna help me it's always helpful when you're basting a quilt to have a friend to help so we're gonna take our batting and we're gonna bring it over the quilt and we're gonna lay the quilt onto the quilt backing now keep in mind that a lot of people like to fluff their batting's first in the dryer which is a great idea it'll get some of those wrinkles out but this is gonna be just fine I'm gonna lay it out and smooth it into place get any of those big creases out then I'm gonna use some of the spray based again and put just again another little layer of spray based on top of the batting now Michelle and I are gonna put the quilt top down this is the most important part of the basting steps because you need to keep the straight edges of the quilt straight so having a friend to help you is gonna make a big difference so we're gonna take the quilt and unfold it and now we parachute it down as you're parachuting it down you're gonna be looking at the straight lines of the quilt so I'm looking at this straight line as I'm laying it down I'm keeping it visually straight as I look this way - Michelle I'm trying to keep those edges nice and straight paying attention to the straight lines of the quilt come here Michelle and I together we'll do this and then we'll each go down the end of the quilt so when I look down this end of the quilt I want this to be nice and straight what happens oftentimes is because quilts are not very flat you're gonna have some things that are gonna bubble up this is the most common error that people make when they're basting they're quilt they'll see the excess fabric here and they'll want to push it out to the edges do you see what that does to the edge of the quilt now the quilt is no longer square you need to instead keep the straight line straight and these excess parts this little bit of fluff in here just move it to the middle of the quilt a quilt is not gonna be perfectly flat it's not a piece of wood it wouldn't be comfortable to sleep under if it were so you know that there's gonna be texture here and that's okay keep the straight lines straight and move the excess fabric into the middle of the quilt next Michelle and I are gonna start pinning the quilt so we're gonna start putting the pins in now Michelle's gonna help me one thing I want you to know is that when you're play seeing your pins place the pins where you don't plan on doing your first quilting so on this quilt these straight lines are the first things I'm going to quilt so I don't want to put a pin on one of those straight lines I'm going to put a pin in the middle of that section I also want my pins to be about a hand apart not a big huge hand just a nice comfortable hand so on this quilt if I put a pin in the middle of each of these squares it's gonna be the perfect distance to hold it all together and basting a quilt can get long and tedious so it's always fun to have help from your friends Karen [Music] [Music] it's all done with a little help from my friends I got this quilt basted in no time when we come back together next time we'll be machine cooking our quick [Music] you

Channel: OnPoint-TV and Quilting with Nancy

Views: 13,458

Keywords: basting quilts, quilt basting, quilting tutorial, OnPoint Tutorials, Learning to Quilt, Nancy Roelfsema, quilting, quilt making, how to baste a quilt, Batting, quilt batting, backing fabric, free online quilt class, how to quilt

Id: f9U7FEFv6ow

Length: 26min 49sec (1609 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 28 2017