Why Backing Fabric Deserves a Second Thought
Quilters spend weeks — sometimes months — choosing prints for the front of a quilt. The backing? Often it's an afterthought: whatever fills the back. But the backing is the largest single piece of fabric in your quilt, and it's the part that wraps around you, your kids, or your grandkids. Choosing a wideback fabric like the Multi Grandma's Flower Garden Calico Wideback from Riley Blake Designs means you get full 108-inch coverage with no center seam — and a print pretty enough to deserve attention on its own.
What Is a Wideback, Exactly?
Standard quilting cotton is about 44 inches wide. To back a twin-size quilt, you'd have to sew two or three strips together, leaving visible seams across the back. A wideback is woven a full 108 inches wide — wide enough to back a queen-size quilt in a single piece. This Multi Grandma's Flower Garden calico is 100% cotton, designed by Lori Holt for Riley Blake Designs, so the fiber content and thread count behave exactly like the cottons you piece with — no surprises at the iron or in the wash.
1. Skip the Seams on Large Quilts
The number-one reason quilters buy widebacks is convenience. One cut, no piecing, no wrestling a 100-inch seam through your machine. For a throw or baby quilt, you'll have plenty of leftover fabric for binding or a second project. Measure your quilt top, add 4 to 8 inches on every side for longarm or hand quilting, and cut once.
2. Match the Print Scale to the Quilt
Grandma's Flower Garden calico is a true calico — a small, allover floral ditsy print in the cheerful "multi" colorway. Because the print is small-scale, it reads as a texture from a distance rather than competing with your quilt top. That's the sweet spot for backings: a lively but forgiving pattern that hides quilting stitches, thread nests, and small imperfections on the back side.
3. Reversible-Quilt Potential
A backing this pretty invites a second life: make your quilt fully reversible. Choose a quilt top that harmonizes — florals, ginghams, or Lori Holt's signature scrappy palettes all play well — and suddenly one quilt reads as two. A multi-color calico back is especially forgiving if your quilting design shows through more prominently on one side.
4. Color-Pairing Made Simple
The multi colorway pulls together many hues, so let it do the coordinating work for you. Match your binding to one of the print's deeper tones for a framed look, or pick a lighter tone for something softer. Because the fabric is a calico rather than a large-scale print, there's no motif to center or directional print to worry about when cutting — a real time-saver.
5. Leftover Widebacks Are a Stash Goldmine
Here's the quilter's secret: wideback yardage is just fabric, and 108 inches goes a long way. Leftover pieces become table runners, pillow backs, tote linings, or the back of a second, smaller quilt. At the per-yard value of a wideback versus piecing three widths of standard cotton, you often come out ahead on both cost and time.
Cutting and Care Tips
Always prewash widebacks the same way you treat your piecing fabrics — same detergent, same water temperature — so everything shrinks together. Square the cut carefully: with 108 inches of width, a slightly off-grain cut becomes a very visible wave across the back. Tear or rotary-cut on the true grain, press with steam, and load it on your frame or baste it smooth before quilting. Because this fabric is 100% cotton, it presses crisply and quilts beautifully with standard batting.
Shop the Multi Grandma's Flower Garden Calico Wideback Fabric Per Yard at Linda's Electric Quilters.
