A Connundrum Solved

Yesterday I sandwiched together my latest little baby quilt, the turquoise and yellow Newton's Lullaby Dreams. First I washed the kitchen floor  and then taped the backing fabric (a green small Newton's Lullaby Dreams) face down with pieces of masking tape. The batting I'm using is made of beautiful, soft bamboo and silk. I smoothed the batting over top of the back fabric and then place the quilt top over that. Yikes! It didn't fit!  The quilt top was wider than the backing fabric!

I had made the outer border of the quilt top 6 inches wide ( 5 3/4 after seam was sewn) for a total of 42 inch wide quilt top. My tape measure verified that the back fabric was only 40 1/4 inches wide! I had just assumed that it would be 42 inches wide as most fabrics are... What an amateur mistake!

Now what? I tried to figure out a way to cut the back fabric and sew it together in a manner to accommodate the 42 by 46" quilt top, but the fabric isn't big enough and it has a directional print on it besides....

Next option, I could trim the back fabric and add some of the turquoise fabric to the sides and top of it  like sashing....  The hard part then is placing the quilt top exactly squared over the back, not easy to do with the batting in between hiding it.

So I decided the baby quilt did not have to be 42" by 46" anyway and I cut 1 1/4 inches off the outer borders (on all sides). That only gives me 1 inch and a smidge of extra back fabric, which usually gets pulled in by the quilting process. Most patterns want you to have 3 inches extra on all sides.

After that I repeated the process of sandwiching the quilt back together and pinning it carefully so that the back fabric and quilt top didn't overlap anywhere. It's going to be tight, but as long as I don't overdo it with quilting, and keep smoothing out and stretching the back fabric, I think it will work.

next I showed my daughter the sandwiched quilt on the weekend and she noticed that the top of the quilt top and the top of the back fabric were flipped around! (What the...!?)

So we pulled all the pins out and started all over with taping the back to the floor again and repinning the top on the other way this time...

Now I have to remember to change the pattern directions for the outer border for my next Newton's Lullaby Dreams quilt top, the pink version.

Did I mention that we are having twin grandchildren in January? A little boy AND a little girl! ♥♥
Are we thrilled or what!!!  ☺☺