Backing Fabric

It needs to have 4" of wiggle room on all sides. If your top is 60" x 80" it needs to be 68" x 88" minimum. There are a few reasons why longarmers need wider and longer backing and batting fabric than your top for quilting. 

1.) We have to attach the top and bottom to rails and this can take up a few inches of space. This goes for the side clamps as well to keep your top secure.

2.) We need room to maneuver the machine over your quilt top safely without leaving our safe zones.

3.) Think of some of those inches as our own seam allowance. Most pantographs are quilted off of the quilt top for full coverage.  Also, we use the side off of the quilt top for testing tension. 

4.) Sometimes we need to square up the backing before loading. This is because we need a straight edge to fasten to the rails. If a backing comes in that doesn't have a straight edge, we will need to cut into those extra inches. 

Whether or not you are using a wide back fabric or if you have pieced your backing together to achieve that extra 8"; you will need to square it up. What does that mean? Simplest answer is straight lines on all four sides and each corner is 90 degrees. 

You want to be able to fold the fabric in half length wise and the sides match up. Same with the width. There are a handful of Youtube videos that can show you how to do this successfully.  

If you have pieced your backing together, you want to make sure the tails are cut off. Those extra pieces that are longer than the rest. You should have a straight edge on all 4 sides. 

This step is important in the loading process to make sure that your quilt is loaded straight onto the bars.