Deborah asked me how to piece the back of a quilt. In the case of the Storm at Sea quilt, the quilt top measures about 98" square. Cotton fabric is typically 44" to 45" square. Even two lengths of fabric sewn together would only give me a piece about 88" wide. What I did was purchase three pieces of fabric, each three yards long. I sewed all three long sides together, then opened it up and centered the batting and the quilt top on the pieced-together backing. I have a full-width piece down the center. The backing will have two seams going down, and a little more than half a fabric width on each side of the center. There will be quite a bit of fabric left over, but I'd much rather have a piece that's much too big than one that's too small for the top I made.

Quilt backing fabric up to 108" wide is available, so you don't have to piece lengths of fabric for a backing, but the colors are usually pale (some with large floral motifs). DH picked the fabric for the backing in this case; it is supposed to be his quilt, after all.

I'm pin-basting this quilt. We have an old glass-topped octagonal table that I refuse to throw away. I layer the backing/batting/quilt top, then pick it up and drape it over the table. I use large binder clips to hold the quilt in place, and use pins to baste the layers together prior to machine quilting. Not only does the glass make it very easy to pin (the pins just slide on the glass surface!) but you can go under the table and make sure there are no wrinkles in the backing before clipping the quilt in place!

I got about half of the quilt pin-basted today, then had to go out for more pins. Yesterday I finished sewing the four Stack-N-Whack blocks that I already had prepared, then laid them out to check for size. I decided I need to make the next size given in the pattern, so I cut out and prepped ten more Stack-N-Whack blocks; I got maybe four of those sewn up today. Also managed another couple of inches on the first front of the Lo-Tech Sweat!