Perfectly Pieced Quilt Backs

First of all I want to acknowledge Canada's National Indigenous Peoples Day by stating that I acknowledge that I live on traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory. This territory belongs to the Anishinabewaki, Attiwonderonk and Myaamia Indigenous peoples.  I live on the north shore of erielhonan, the Iroquoian name for Lake Erie which means 'long tail'. I continue to learn and am always grateful for this beautiful piece of Turtle Island.

Well, Kelly Young of My Quilt Infatuation has done it once again. She has published her third book, and this is one I guarantee you will want to have on your shelf. How many of you have leftover chunks of fabric after the top is complete? Yeah, I thought so: 100% of you. Have you used them right away, or, are they languishing in your stash, or maybe even still together (guilty) because they looked so terrific in that quilt that they could probably make a pillow, or bag or some placemats even... How about it you make them into a pleasing quilt back? Well that is exactly what Kelly's book is all about, 30 yes THIRTY quilt back design ideas. I made two from her book.

Here is the first one on the design wall, the back for one of my three H2H quilts. I did Around the Corner for this one.

All of the strips on the top left, except for the Kaffe Fassett first one, came with the orphan blocks as leftover strip sets.

The largest square in the lower left, a tiny floral VIP fabrics cotton, is a leftover square from some fabrics my aunt gave me when she was starting to destash her plentiful fabric stash from years of dressmaking, crafting and home décor. This is where Kelly has you start building this back. 

So this is another great use for this book: invariably there are chunks left when you piece backs for quilts, so this is a way to put them to good use.

Here is the front of that quilt, Global Garden.

I used a few chunks from the front of the quilt and other fabrics that match the tone of the front fabrics. Was I excited to find a use for that strip of butterfly fabric on the back!

The second back is my third RSC quilt which I’ve named Bright Paws.

Laid out on the design wall with the top underneath!

This back is called Toppling Tower. Kelly uses four coordinating fabrics for hers, but I settled for just two. I had decent yardage left of the blue wide back from another aunt’s quilt, and thought it would pop nicely against the navy Moda fabric which was left over from the front. The front of the quilt seemed to have a fair amount of red in it so I went to my red yardage which is not that plentiful, and right on top was the Riley Blake floral. Pale blue flowers? Perfect! I decided to go with just these two since the front is very busy. 

My strips are 9.5" wide as per the book measurements, but because this is a small throw, I didn't use the 42" WOF. There would have been too much tower and not enough background!

Somehow I ended up with one extra paw block, a surprise to me when I was sewing the paws in the actual bear paw blocks, because I had kept meticulous count of them... clearly not meticulous enough. Rather than languish in the orphan block drawer, I incorporated it into one of the strips. As for the fabrics, all but about a fat quarter of the Riley Blake are gone and boy does that feel good! 

Here is the front of my quilt. 

I don't think I have shown this quilt at all. It was done as a leader/ender project over the past two or more years, trying to use up ‘ugly’ and forlorn fabrics. I fell in love with Yvonne’s quilt (five blocks by five) at Sew Yummy when she was making hers back in 2020. I made mine smaller, three blocks by four, so it could be a donation quilt. The background navy is a Moda fabric that my friend LuEllen and I each got 5 metres of when we found it at Fabricland in St. Albert, Alberta, for an unreal price. This means the fabric is 12+ years old! 😬🙈 I have used it here and there, but used it all up in the making of this  quilt. The quilt will be going to either the Windsor Homeless Shelter or Quilts for Survivors, for those Indigenous Canadians who survived Canada's Residential Schools.

Yvonne did her scrappy bear paw quilt with an all-navy background but after I did the bright centre squares where the four paws come together, I knew I wanted to echo that in the cornerstones. I didn’t allow myself to cut any 2.5” squares—they had to be from the 2.5” tray! A simple large meander over the quilt top meant it was quilted up in no time.

Evening shot on the deck

For mostly ‘ugly’ and forlorn fabric, I am surprised and really pleased with how bright and cheery it is! You can catch a glimpse of how the Toppling Tower complements the front.

I contemplated for a hot minute a rainbow binding because hello, rainbow quilt, but when I looked in my bag of leftover bindings, there were three and a bit strips just sitting there of navy Quilter’s Candy from Connecting Threads, so with the less than a quarter yard left of the Moda cut into strips, and a couple other small navy binding pieces from the bag, I had just enough to go around the quilt! It’s bound by machine. If you look closely you’ll see my satin label and SW initials quilted in to the lower right corner of the quilt. 

Quilt Stats:

Pattern: Scrappy Bear Claw by Yvonne of Sew Yummy

Size: 48" x 62.5"
Fabric: scraps and stash

Batting: Fairfield low loft polyester

Backing: scraps and stash

Quilted: on Avril:  39 234 stitches

Threads: pieced with various; quilted with Essential cotton Persian Blue; The Bottom Line in the bobbin. Binding applied and top-stitched with Isacord polyester.

I hope you'll visit Kelly's blog post today at My Quilt Infatuation where you can find the list of several bloggers showing off their quilt backs from the book!

Be sure to check out Kelly's instagram @myquiltinfatuation where she's been posting all week the quilt backs and check out this post to see the 18, yes EIGHTEEN downloadable bonus quilt fronts patterns that you get with the purchase of the book! Here they are:

You read that right: these are included in the purchase of the book as downloadable PDFs. So 30 back designs and 18 front designs, need I say more?

You can get your copy of this book at all the usual places for quilt books: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Connecting Threads, Missouri Star and of course her Etsy shop.

If you'd like to see examples of more beautiful quilt backs from Kelly's book, be sure to visit the bloggers taking part in the grand launch hop:

Sandra @ mmm...quilts - you are here!
Rose @ Something Rosemade
Diann @ Little Penguin Quilts
Laura @ Slice of Pi Quilts
Jayne @ Twiggy and Opal
Anja @ Anja Quilts
Nancy @ Grace and Peace Quilting
Vasudha @ Storied Quilts
Kris @ Sew Sunshine
Leanne @ Devoted Quilter
Rebecca @ Rebecca Grace Quilting
Preeti @ Sew Preeti Quilts
Susan @ Quilt Fabrication
Kate @ Katie Mae Quilts
Sarah @ Sarah Goer Quilts
Linda @ Flourishing Palms
Anne-Marie @ Stories From the Sewing Room
Michelle @ From Bolt to Beauty
Gail @ Quilting Gail
Kat @ Scrapbox Quilts
Julie @ Julie's Quilts and Costumes
Jan @ The Colorful Fabriholic