Advantages of Buying 108″-wide fabric

Dianne Sews & More offers a wide variety of gorgeous 108″-wide quilt backing fabrics. Our wide-back quilting fabrics allow you to properly back your quilts with one seamless piece of premium-quality, 100% cotton fabric, eliminating the need for seams on the back of your quilt(s).

1. Wide backings can be especially important if your quilt will be quilted using a longarm quilting machine. Pieced quilt backs often pull toward the center when the backing fabric is stretched across a long arm as it’s stitched and rolled. If you, or your longarm quilting professional, don’t properly clip vertical seams, the back can pull toward the center, impacting the quilt’s overall “squareness” by the end of the edge-to-edge or custom quilting process. For example, if you’ve ever sewn a convex or concave curve, you have to clip the seam to lay or press flat. The same is true for pieced backs made of long vertical seams. If the vertical seam is not clipped along the length of the seam, then it will be difficult to keep the quilt square on the longarm frame. This issue is eliminated if you choose seamless wide backing fabric for your quilt.
2. Seamless (cleaner) look—Having no seams in your quilt backing leaves your finished quilt looking stunning and feels smoother (since there are no seams) than quilts with pieced backs.
3. Saves time—The old adage, “Time is money,” is true! Your time is valuable, and not having to piece together smaller cuts or scraps of fabric to create a quilt back can save you hours of time.
4. Lower cost—Wide quilt backing typically costs less per square foot or square inch than 42″ (standard yardage).
5. Lower cost per square foot than standard bolts of fabric. Let’s do the math!

One yard of wide fabric measures 3′ x 9′ (36×108). When you multiply 3 x 9, you get 27 square feet. If the fabric price (for this example) is $17 per yard, then the cost per square foot is $0.63.

One yard of standard fabric measures 3′ x 3’6″ (36×42). When you multiply 3 x 1.17 (42″ is 1.17 yards), you get 3.51 square feet. If the fabric price (for this example) is $9 per yard, then the cost per square foot is $2.56 (four times higher per square foot than wide backing yardage). If you buy wide backing to piece even some of the FRONT of your quilts and then you put wide fabric on the back, your overall fabric (project) cost will be much lower than if all 42″ wide fabric was used to piece the front and the back. This also means that wide backing is a much better value than taking time to piece your quilts with 42″ wide fabrics. When you factor in the value of time not spent piecing the back, the saving is a lot!

Another very important thing to discuss is that wide backing fabric is that it’s not all alike in quality—not even close! My online store only carries premium, 100% cotton quilt-shop-quality fabric. However, in my area, there are a couple of locally-owned discount fabric stores in addition to the big box stores. JoAnn and Hobby Lobby carry wide fabrics in our local stores, and Walmart carries them in their online store. There is a wide variety of fabric quality among the discounters.

We’ve all heard the comments, “All fabric is the same,” “Fabric is fabric,” and “Some companies just charge more for the same thing.” The fact is that none of these statements are valid. The quality of one fabric is not the quality of another. Fabric comes in various weights, weaves, dyes and manufacturing processes. The cost of fabric is directly related to thread count, the raw material and the manufacturer’s process. If the fabric feels like cardboard when you buy it there’s a good chance it’s still going to feel like cardboard even after multiple washings.

If you’re buying fabric online and have questions about the fabric’s quality, then send a message and ask if the fabric is first, second or third-quality. Sometimes internet discounters sell fabrics of lesser quality or fabric goods that entered the market in previous years. It is perfectly fine to buy fabric that’s a few years old if it is first-quality. Typically, those offering well-known manufacturers’ yard goods will confidently answer questions. Buying online brings a lot of value as the discounts can be great since the seller might have a limited amount of overhead.

We guarantee that all fabric and batting in our online store is first quality. We do not carry seconds, thirds, irregulars or off-brands. Quality is assured when you purchase fabric from this online store.

I know that it’s unlikely you’ll piece quilt fronts with all wide backing fabric because the color and design selection are many times larger for 42″ wide fabric than what’s available in 108″-wide. However, I regularly use wide quilt back trimmings to piece a follow-up project and that lowers the overall cost of subsequent projects. Quality fabric is an investment in your project and it can be expensive to buy top-quality or designer fabric. Choosing to incorporate wide backing, with a much lower cost per square foot, allows you to achieve a gorgeous outcome and a lower overall materials cost.

Browse our gorgeous selection of top-quality fabrics. Choose the fabric you need to start making gorgeous pieced quilt fronts and flat, high-quality backs. We have a lot of great backing fabric in stock so that the back of your quilt looks just as impressive and creative as the front.