One Wide Piece Instead of a Pieced Back
Gentler Times Reunion Coral Cotton Wideback Fabric is a 100% cotton wideback fabric by Lori Holt for Riley Blake Designs, sold by the yard. It measures 107"/108" wide — more than twice the width of standard quilting cotton — and features tonal floral bouquets on a coral ground. It is part of Lori Holt's Gentler Times collection, and Riley Blake Designs describes the fabric as great for quilting, apparel and home decor. That extra width is the whole point: most quilt tops can be backed with a single, seamless piece instead of several lengths sewn together.
The tonal floral bouquets give the back of a quilt a finished look without competing with the quilt top. From a distance the coral reads as a warm, textured solid; up close, the bouquets add gentle detail. That suits busy or scrappy fronts, because the backing supports the design rather than shouting over it — and on quilts that get folded or flipped over, the back looks as considered as the front.
What Wideback Fabric Is Best For
Its most obvious job is backing quilts. A 107"/108" width accommodates most quilt backs in a single panel, so a throw, twin, or many larger tops can be covered without a center seam. No seam on the back means no bulky ridge for a longarm quilter to roll over, no seam allowances to press and keep flat in the quilt sandwich, and no pattern matching across joined lengths.
Beyond backing, a wide cut is useful anywhere you need breadth: bed skirts, duvet covers, curtains, wide tablecloths, and other projects that would otherwise need seaming. One yard is 36 inches long by about 107 inches wide, already a generous working area for smaller projects.
How to Use It: Measuring, Cutting, and Pairing
Start by measuring your finished quilt top, then add the extra your quilting method requires — longarm quilters typically ask for several extra inches of backing on all sides, and home machine quilters also benefit from overhang for basting and shifting. Because the fabric is sold by the yard in continuous length, order enough length to cover the top's length plus that allowance, and let the 107"/108" width cover the other dimension. If your quilt is wider than the fabric, the wideback still helps: you will need only one added strip instead of building a back from multiple standard-width pieces.
Before cutting, press the fabric and check the direction of the floral bouquets so the print runs the way you want it on the finished quilt. Square up the cut edges — wide fabric can drift slightly off grain in shipping and storage — and trim selvedges as your quilter prefers. If you piece a strip in for an extra-wide quilt, press that seam open to keep the back as flat as possible, and position it off-center or along one side rather than down the middle of the quilt.
For color pairing, coral sits happily with the warm, vintage-leaning palette Lori Holt is known for: creams, soft whites, aqua and denim blues, sage greens, and buttery yellows all sit well against it. Use it behind Gentler Times prints for a coordinated finish, or pair it with other Riley Blake basics when you want the back to echo one color from the front. Because the bouquets are tonal, binding in a deeper coral, a cream, or a contrasting aqua will each give a different frame to the same quilt.
Care
Care is simple: machine wash cold and tumble dry low, following the instructions given for this fabric. Washing before you quilt is a matter of preference, but if you plan to wash, do it before cutting so any shrinkage happens before the backing is sized to your top. Store leftover wideback folded on a shelf or rolled to minimize deep creases, and give it a good press before basting — a smooth, wrinkle-free back is the foundation of smooth quilting.
Shop the Gentler Times Reunion Coral Cotton Wideback Fabric per yard at Linda's Electric Quilters.
