A Wideback That Wasn't Wide Enough

I headed for the church around 10 am yesterday morning. One of the families in our congregation has a huge reunion here in Montana every other year. Our friend, Amanda, who works with me at the fire department auction, belongs to that family and texted me a few days ago to see if they could borrow one of the church’s quilting frames for the reunion this weekend. I told her I would meet her at the church and help her load the frame in her car.

Church was a busy place when I arrived. We are renting our church basement to another local church for their daycare program. Their staff was getting the space ready. Our church ran a daycare/after school care in our basement for 20 years—Susan was the director—and it is a desperate need in our area. Northwestern Energy was also using our property as a staging area; it looks like they are extending the natural gas lines.

The fellowship hall was empty, though, so I got to work laying out the Log Cabin quilt while I waited for Amanda. I started with the backing, which I stretched and taped down on the floor. (The floor has a low-pile carpet and I was working in one of the low-traffic areas.) I laid a Warm and White cotton quilt batt over the backing, then added a low-loft polyester batt. I’ve been doing that on the last few quilts and I like the combination better than just a single cotton batt.

Once those were down and smoothed out, I laid out the quilt top. And then I stopped, because there was a problem.

“Wideback” fabrics are traditionally 108” wide. In fact, sometimes “wideback” and “108” are used interchangeably. My quilt top was 96” wide, which should have left me a good 6” of backing fabric on either side of the top.

I had a scant 1-1/2” on each side. I got out the little tape measure I always carry in my purse and measured the backing. It was nowhere near 108”. It was only 99” wide from selvage to selvage. I do prewash my fabrics, but any shrinkage is going to occur in the length, not the width. I had plenty of length.

Arrggghhhhh. Usually, a basted quilt has at least 4” of extra backing width on each side. That extra width is essential when loading a quilt onto a frame. I like at least 3” when quilting on the Q20. I didn’t want to have to take the quilt apart and go get another backing, so I proceeded with basting. I will just have to watch as I quilt it that I don’t lose any width.

Here is a birds-eye view. The battings are wider than the top. You can just make out the pieces of painter’s tape at the top that are holding down the corners of the backing and see that the backing is narrow. The backing should be as wide as the batting.

Here is a view from the floor while I was pinning it:

Once I was done, I carefully rolled up the quilt and headed to town to get serger thread. The store that carries the serger thread I like also happens to be the store where I got the backing, so I mentioned the issue to one of the employees. In return, I got a lecture about how “not all widebacks are 108” and it’s up to the customer to double-check the width before purchasing.” I suggested that a note to that effect over the shelf of widebacks would be helpful.

[To be honest, I didn’t appreciate that response. I thought it was a bit condescending. I also don’t think it’s correct, because when I got home, I looked up that fabric company’s listing for that line and even the fabric company claims that wideback is 108”. That bolt must have slipped through quality control and was narrower than it should have been.]

In any case, the top is basted and ready for quilting. I’ll get started on that tomorrow. Susan is bringing the little boys over today. We had a local copy shop print our homestead foundation newsletter on Monday. I picked up the copies yesterday. While I was making dinner, I set up the paper-folding machine and ran 1500 newsletters through it. Susan and I will sit and watch the boys—they will play with the wooden trucks for hours—and tape the newsletters for mailing.

The copy shop also printed and bound the Jan Minott books for me. Those will make good bedtime reading. And I had them make a copy of the Itch to Stitch Icaria Pants pattern. I know I am going to have to adjust the rise on those pants, so I’ve been watching Karina’s very helpful videos on pants fitting at her Lifting Pins and Needles YouTube channel. Karina is 5’8”, so knowing how she lengthens the rise on pants is helpful. I can find a lot of information on how to shorten patterns, but information on lengthening patterns is harder to come by.

I need to visit the cucumber patch again this morning. And I’ve got to keep an eye on the currants and tomatillos so I can begin harvesting those when they are ready.

Those dumb chickens of mine—after over a month of sitting on a pile of eggs, the eggs disappeared and the hens gave up and moved on. I never saw any chicks. It is a very good thing I am not relying on the chickens to reproduce themselves or they would have all died out a long time ago.