SHORT LIST​ for preparing your quilt to be long arm machine quilted
Choosing Backing Fabric
You spend a great deal of time considering and choosing fabric for your quilt top and the quilt back fabric needs to be just as carefully considered! It should be a complimentary fabric and colour to your top. Even with batting in between the top and back a mismatched and strong back colour can shadow through to the front. For best results choose a backing fabric that is multi coloured with a busy print such as small floral prints or bold geometrics. Solid fabrics or fabrics that appear solid from a distance are acceptable if using a thread colour that blends with the fabric.
Squaring Up The Backing
Quilts have traditionally been squares or rectangles. In order to achieve this each component of the quilt, top & backing, need to be square. Before cutting or piecing the backing fabric to size, prewash and dry the fabric. I like to machine wash and dry my fabric as soon as I purchase it so that it is ready to use when I need it! To square up your backing, first determine that you have enough fabric for it to be 6-8 inches larger than the quilt top on all sides. Fold the fabric in half lengthwise (shortest edges together) and hold it while standing. Look for any diagonal folds in the fabric and adjust the edges to eliminate the fold. This will probably mean that the long edges do not meet in a straight line. Lay folded fabric on a table and bring the fold to the long edges to result in four layers of fabric. Hold it up again and check to be sure the new fold hangs straight and adjust as needed. Continue bringing up folds to the first edges and adjusting as needed until the width is small enough to lie flat on your cutting surface. Trim off the excess uneven layers on the short edges. (You may lose up to 4 inches overall in this exercise.) The squared backing needs to be 4 inches larger than the quilt top on all sides. The backing can be larger - I can work with this!
Quilt Top & Border Preparation
You have worked diligently on all your blocks and are ready to add borders. It is very important to not have 'friendly' borders. 'Friendly' borders wave to you and having them on a quilt top is about the only time you do not want to see a 'friendly' wave. This can be eliminated by measuring the length of border needed before attaching it to the quilt. It only takes a few more minutes to measure through the body of the quilt in at least two places, the center and the edge you are attaching the border to. Take the smaller of these two measurements and cut your border fabric to this measurement. Fold your border in half and press, fold in half again and press and if needed fold again in half and press to give yourself easily seen equal sections of border to pin onto the quilt top in corresponding sections. Then sew your border easing in fullness (if any) from either the quilt top edge or the border fabric. If there is a big difference between a measurement taken in the quilt center and at an edge you may want to consider unsewing some quilt top seams and taking in a little bit of excess fabric spread over many seams to bring the two measurements closer together.
