Seaming a Backing for Taupe Black White Gray

Seaming the backing for my taupe, black, white, and gray top took me all day. Yes, one seam took me all day. Sigh... piecing goes so much faster for me. My top is 83" long. I had 5 ⅜ yard of backing fabric. Half of that in inches is 96 ¾" so I certainly had some breathing space, even with making my backing 4" longer than the top. But I wanted to match the seam so I fiddled around with where the 12¼" repeats would fall, and cut the backing fabric into two unequal lengths. The familiar saying is, "Measure twice and cut once."  The first length was 87".  I did not cut the remaining yardage until after completing my seam. Manipulating 5 ⅜ yards of fabric was a struggle and I spent a lot of time checking and rechecking my calculations. There must be an easier way because my cautiousness sucked up a lot of my time.

Then there was the question of seaming along the length, matching the motifs. It is not like I could simply put the two selvages together and zoom down, voila! Maybe the fabric was a drop match vertically but I need to shift the fabric horizontally to match the motifs. The stitching line was a different distance from each selvage. I drew lines through matching parts of repeats on the right side of the fabric on each of the two lengths. Sewing along those lines should hide them.

Then I folded the upper length of fabric on the line and pressed the crease in. The crease would be my guide for the stitching line when I sewed from the wrong side and could not see the pencil mark. The pins set the alignment for the cross grain of the fabric along the stitching line.

  

I double checked that the two lines aligned and then sewed on the crease line. The crease line is shadow dependent and not always as crisply clear as I would like it to be. A possible future improvement to my method could be to repeat drawing that line on the wrong side as well using a light table or to insert carbon tracing paper underneath when I draw the original pencil line. I still think I would double check that the lines align with each other periodically as I sew a few inches at a time.

Things were going along swimmingly and then my machine started making an odd sound. I traveled along, hoping it was a brief anomaly that would self-correct; but I stubbornly and stupidly traveled about 8" before I turned it over to check it out. Something had been mis-threaded or come unthreaded. Note the ragged loops.

All the extra loops were from the top thread not the bobbin thread. The upper thread might have slipped out of the tension discs, or when I had to change spools, I neglected to be sure the tension discs were filled properly. I re-threaded the top thread, and I took out and re-inserted the bobbin as well. A few inches of stitching on a scrap confirmed that all was well again and the problem disappeared. Luckily such loose loops spread apart easily and could be easily clipped with thread snips.

And I had just been to a Sew Day for my guild where I was given this handy dandy scrap bucket so I had a place for all those thread snippets I had to painstakingly remove. The tape measure and scissor buttons are adorable on two of the three folded over sides.

The button on the third side is a sewing machine.

The base is triangular and the print is an adorable Minnie Mouse floral. I must admit if you have to rip out, a cute trash collector makes the task so much more pleasant.

Back to my backing seaming. I distract so easily. The uneven sides of the seam allowance show up clearly in the next photo. I scratched my head on whether if I had shifted the fabric lengthwise half a fabric repeat would it have matched. If that possibility were to indeed be a successful alternate approach, the "how" eluded me. I had no problem with cutting off the excess. My top is 63" wide and even with my margin of 4" added to that, I was still less that a double WOF, about 84". 

Once I steam-set the seam, I trimmed the allowance to ¾" and pressed to one side.

The matching came out pretty good – not perfect in all places  –  but pretty good overall.  Once quilted I believe it will be further camouflaged.

I am truly grateful that when I cut the batting it does not need to be seamed nor matched. I buy bamboo batting by the 10 yard, 96" wide roll from Winline Textiles and they ship for free. I will cut it 2" longer in length than the top and 2" wider in width. Doing so allows me 1" wiggle room on each edge. Tomorrow or the next day, I will moan and groan as I crawl on the floor, spray basting the three-layer sandwich together. But I am determined not to lose momentum on this project!