Front and Back, A Quilters Question and Crazy Stars

Look what Mary Jane brought in to share with the Ladies of the Cloth. This little beauty is a child's quilt. The pieced stars have a wonky, crazy-patch style to them. Great colors, coordinating sashing and double borders...what more could you want?

When you look closely the fabric collection features a Noah's Ark Theme! 

And now to my question, how do you finish the back of your quilts? Recently, I have noticed that many quilt backs have as much attention and detail as the front. On this one Mary Jane used a Noah's Ark panel to feature the theme on the back! How cute is that? I admit that mostly I have been using a single wide fabric for backing that has a small to medium size pattern or large pieces and fat quarters that I will not likely use for piecing any time soon. Reducing the stash. By the time I finish the front I am ready to wrap it up, quilt it and move on to the next project!  

Another example, at a recent quilt show visit we admire the front of this quilt. Fabrics were beautiful, rather straightforward piecing and assembly. Then we moved onto the next display and this gentleman was showing us how HE expertly applied the binding to his wife's quilt. What he revealed, however, was the back of the previous quilt, Wow!

We spoke with the maker and she explained what happened. She signed up for a class on cotton theory. She thought she was going to learn about how to identify quality cotton fabric. No, no, no, she was taking a class based on Betty Cotton's technique of quilting as you go finishing the front and the back of the quilt at the same time, block by block! Cotton Theory! Well, we certainly enjoyed that conversation and that was also an example of going to small shows where the quilt exhibitors and the show workers are the same people! You get the back story.) The piecing technique on the back of this quilt is not well defined on this photo but truly, I liked this side better.