Celebrate Backwards Day With These Dynamic Quilt Backs!

January 31, 2025

It’s National Backwards Day, and what better way for quilters to celebrate than by flipping their quilts to share the beauty in the quilt back?

Today, I’m sharing three types of quilt backs that enhance the overall design of the quilt:

  1. Pieced Quilt Backs
  2. Quilt Backs to Highlight the Quilting Stitches
  3. Reversible Quilts

Today’s post is a mix of my quilts and quilts contributed by other makers. Quilts by other makers are labeled, and I provided links to their blogs or social media when available.

Do you have a quilt back to share? Join the linkup at the end of this post to inspire us all!

Pieced Quilt Backs

Pieced quilt backs can echo motifs from the quilt top, incorporate extra quilt blocks, and use up scraps from your quilt or yardage from your stash. These options make them a great option for effectively using materials and creating dynamic designs.

In 2020, I set out to make a 100-day Improv Log Cabin quilt using the blues from my stash. The goal for this quilt was to use a lot of the beautiful print fabrics in my stash at a time when I was quilting primarily with solids. The back of this quilt includes blocks from the front of the quilt, scraps, yardage, and even a small quilt top (upper right corner) I created in a workshop!

100-Day Improv Log Cabin

After Jen Strauser created her Log Cabin Jam quilt, she incorporated scraps from the quilt top into the pieced back and even carried this through to piecing around the quilt label.

Log Cabin Jam by Jen Strauser (photo courtesy of Jen Strauser)

Scrappy quilts pair beautifully with pieced backings incorporating patchwork from the front of the quilt with ample negative space. In the next two quilts, Sue DeHaan pulls the scrappy prints from the quilt fronts onto the back of the quilts with blocks of solid fabrics.

Quilt and Photo courtesy of Sue DeHaan
Quilt and Photo courtesy of Sue DeHaan

When I created a hashtag quilt, I pieced the back to include the binary code for the hashtag symbol.

Italicized Hashtag

Quilt Backs that Show Off the Quilting

Sometimes, a simple backing fabric does the best job of showing off intricate quilting designs.

The organic, feathery, plant-like motifs on Raise the Roof show up particularly well on this white wideback backing. This quilt was double-batted to enhance the appearance of the quilting further.

Raise the Roof

The front of Where We Connect is two shades of muted blue, and the shocking yellow-green backing makes the blue stitching stand out even more.

Where We Connect

A plain backing is fantastic to show off changes in thread color. In Rainbow Rotary, I changed thread color as I went around the quilt motifs, and the simple white background makes these color changes pop!

Rainbow Rotary

Multiple thread colors stand out against the dark backing fabric on Sue DeHaan’s quilt, including circular appliqués to further enhance the quilt’s back design.

Quilt and Photo courtesy of Sue DeHaan

Dense, colorful quilting translates the quilt’s colors to the back of the quilt in a softer form.

Resonance

Nine Patch Infusion incorporates multiple thread colors that echo onto the back of the quilt. Since the thread weights are lighter in the machine bobbin, the colors appear more muted on the back of the quilt.

Nine Patch Infusion

In Converging Curves, you can see the hand-quilted accents, including decorative stitches that look different on the front and back of the quilt.

Converging Curves

Reversible Quilts

What’s better than one quilt? Two quilts in one!

When a motif from the quilt top is repeated on the back of a quilt, it strengthens the overall design. Jennifer Marks created a brilliant quilt back in this quilt, Safety Dance, by making a massive version of the block on the front. The result is a fantastic reversible quilt.

The back of Safety Dance by Jennifer Marks (Photo courtesy of Jennifer Marks)

When I set out to make a reversible quilt, the potholder technique is my favorite method. This Modern Log Cabin has grey and white blocks on the front and blue and white blocks on the back.

Modern Log Cabin

The front of this hexagon quilt is primarily constructed with aqua equilateral triangles. The back embraces the pink fabrics from this line with a mix of triangles and stripes.

Hexagon Quilt

This Ohio Star Potholder Quilt has blocks with white backgrounds on the front and dark purple backgrounds matching the block binding on the back, giving the design a night vs. day effect. Each block has a star on one side and is solid on the back.

Ohio Star Potholder Quilt

Share Your Quilt Back!

Do you have quilt backs you would like to share? Link them here:

Do you have questions about how to link up? See “How do I add a link to a link party?

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