So, what makes a quilt a quilt? There are several parts that make a quilt and today I’m going to be going through them in the order you would construct one. Knowing the different parts of a quilt and the terminology will help you when planning your next project. I’m currently working on more in depth guides on each technique, once these are written I will link them below each section.
Quilt Front/Top
So, the main part of a quilt and generally the first part you will construct is the Quilt Front/Top. It can also be broken down into the following; blocks, borders and washing. There are several different techniques when it comes to making the Front/top including Traditional Piecing, English Paper Piecing (EPP), Foundation Paper Piecing (FPP), Quilt As You Go, Appliqué and Wholecloth.
Quilt Wadding
When it comes to wadding/batting there are lots of choices out there. You can choose from different fibre content (including cotton, bamboo, wool & polyester), different lofts (thicknesses) and it comes in different widths. Quite often on the wadding packaging it will have a guide to how wide/narrow the quilting stitches need to be so this will also influence what you choose depending on what quilting technique you will use to join your layers together. In the future I will be writing a more in depth article, so keep an eye out!
Backing
The last layer of a quilt is the backing, this is normally a single piece of fabric however when a quilt is very wide you will need to join several pieces together to get the right size. Generally the back is not made of patchwork squares as it’s difficult to line up the blocks when quilting (although some people do use fabric scraps to make the back!).
Quilting Techniques
Once your quilt is layered together, Quilt Front/Top, wadding and backing you will stitch the layers together. There are several different techniques to try including Machine Quilting, Hand Quilting and Hand Tying.
Binding
Binding is the last part of construction. Often it is made by joining strips of fabric to create a long length. This is then applied to a quilt. Generally the binding is folded in half, the raw edges matched up the raw edges of the quilt, sewn with a 1/4” seam allowance and then folded over to the back of quilt where it is stitched by hand.
Notes
Sometimes quilts are bound by using the quilt backing. The quilt backing is trimmed to a specified width evenly around the quilt and then folded so it overlaps the quilt front/top and then sewn down.
Sometimes instead of wadding and backing, people will use fleece to give the quilt bulk and a soft backing.
I hope you found this article helpful, as stated before I will be going into each of these techniques in detail which I will link here as I write them.