SO you think you are done? WRONG

After your quilt has been taken off your frame it is time to square it up before adding the binding. Making a center point in your quilt top, measure the quilt on the X & Y axis ( or horizontally vs vertically). Check that you are measuring through the center of your quilt and at each end. By this I mean - when you measure the length of the quilt measure from top to bottom on both selvedge edges as well as through the middle. Record your measurements and now you can trim your quilt so that all measurements are equal. Turn your quilt 90 degrees and repeat this measurement assessment so that you are now actually working on the width measurements. Don't whack off too much look at the quilt pattern if you need to cut off more than you wanted, perhaps you can fudge it with your binding. Using a wider binding hides a lot of sins................. And no I didn't tell you that!

Your quilt may have been perfect before your quilted it, however with the added thread and top stitching the first squaring up will be affected. This is especially noted if you heavily quilt your work of art.

** Please note if you have an over sized quilt and a small cutting mat this may not be easily squared. However you might be on the lookout for a nice sheet of wood such as subflooring with a nice square edge that till make your squaring of the quilt easier. If the wood has a nice straight edge place it on top of your quilt.Then just slip your cutting mat underneath so that you don't cut your flooring. Then again if you hate that flooring OOPS!! AGAIN I am not responsible...................

Happy quilting

Be there or be Square!

Squaring up a quilt back before you place the fabric on the frame lessens headaches later on!


* Make sure all the wrinkles are pressed out of your backing fabric.

**Fold your backing in half, selvedge edges together . Smooth it out so that the fold is nice and flat and there are no wrinkles.

***Continue to fold your backing in half and smoothing the fabric of any wrinkles until you get a width that is small enough to fit your cutting mat.

**** Place your cutting mat under a non-selvedge end of your folded backing, and using your ruler and rotary cutter, make a nice straight cut to even up the edges. Repeat for the other end.

*** Now the raw edges are trimmed do the same for the selvedges

*** After squaring your backing, measure it again to make sure that it is a total of 8 inches larger than your quilt. You want to make sure you have excess so that you have wiggle room to attach the quilt to the top leader and once fully quilted you will not be short at the distal end. This is a common mistake for newbies the first time they use a frame, unknowingly realizing that as the quilt rolls onto the poles of the frame, the top and back rolls at different rates causing the backing to be short if there was no planned excess.