How to Make Reversible Quilts

Hi there. Have you ever wanted to have a reversible quilt, but one of the things you were worrying about is how do you sandwich that quilt? I'm gonna show you how to do that today. And the first thing we need to talk about is the backing. Now, you've made a backing quilt and it doesn't matter really, it doesn't have to exactly match the front.

But what you do need to do is whatever the finished size of your quilt is going to be, you're going to need the backing to be four inches bigger on every side. On this quilt, on this little one I'm showing you, the finished border is only going to be this wide and I have added four inches to that big border so that when I'm done, when I trim that off, it'll be the right size. You have to have that four inches around on every side if you're going to be having your quilt quilted by a longarmer because they need that to put it on the rollers. So that's the first thing is to know that your backing has to be four inches wider on all sides than your top. So, to sandwich it, it's really not that hard to sandwich a quilt and get it so that they're centered on one another.

The first thing you wanna do is fold both your top and your backing quilt in half, both lengthwise and widthwise. So that's what I'm doing. I'm folding it in half in both directions, making sure I've got those corners just right. There we go. Okay, and I'm going to just press these with my hands.

I want them to get, I want a crease, so I'm gonna press along those folds to make a crease that'll show me where the centers are on all sides. I'm going to do the same thing with my top. Now, of course, as I mentioned, the top is going to be four inches smaller than the backing on all sides. And there's my cute little top. It doesn't matter how big the quilt is that you're doing this to.

The process is the same. The only difference is, if you're using, if you're making a very big quilt, like even a twin bed or bigger, you're gonna want to fold more than once in each direction. You're gonna wanna fold it maybe into fourths on each side. So fold it like this and then you'd fold it again and crease all of those, 'cause it gives you more points to match. These folds are gonna be what I use to align the top and the bottom, excuse me, the front and the back.

Okay, so, I've got that just the way I want it, so I'm gonna finger press right along there. Okay, I'm gonna put the top to one side and here's that back that I already pressed. Okay, since this is the backing, it needs to be right side down, just like it always is on any quilt. So I've got that backing right side down. Do you see this crease right here?

That's what I need. I'm gonna use that crease and this one to find that center point. Okay, I'm gonna put batting on there now and you're gonna say, "How am I gonna see that, those marks I just made?" Well, you'll see that we do see them. Okay. So, on any quilt, you know how you're going to center that batting.

Okay, I'm just gonna make sure that I've got the batting on the quilt backing and just shake it out. There we go. Okay. So you're thinking, "Well, you can't even see the creases you just made." That's right, I can't see them from this side, but I can still see 'em from the outside and we're gonna use there. So this is what you're doing to it.

On your quilt, you wanna smooth that batting out, make sure you don't have any creases underneath, any folds in your backing. Okay, I've got the batting on. Here's my front, which I've creased, all right. I'm gonna open it out approximately in the center of the quilt. Okay.

So when I've got them layered like this, I'm going to look at where these creases cross, and as you can see, they come right through the center there. I'm gonna take my pin and put it right through the center of the top. Then I'm gonna fold the top back. There's that pin. And I'm going to now bring the batting back.

Okay, so I'm going through the batting and the top. Now I need to find the center. There it is, there's that crease, and here's this crease. I'm gonna put the pin right through the center like that. Do you see?

Okay, now I'm gonna fold it back. It doesn't matter if everything's smooth right now because you're going to smooth them around the pin you know is correct. I'm holding the pin vertically. I'm going to smooth around, still holding that pin carefully so I don't have anything, there we go. Now I know I've got it pinned right through the center.

I'm going to take one of my safety pins and I'm gonna pin just to one side like that. And now I can take out that straight pin. All right. So the center is pinned in just that one place. If I put a pin here, I haven't aligned along here yet.

If I put another safety pin there right now, it could be wonky and I've just locked it in, so that's why I only have one there now. Okay, so the next step is to, I'm just gonna straighten this out a little bit again. Now what I need to do is align a fold on one of the sides. So I'm just gonna slide this over. As you can see, my crease is right here.

Okay, let's find the crease on this side. There it is, it's right here. Okay, one thing I can do to make life easier for myself is to just stick a pin in there. You don't have to. You can see the crease.

It's gonna be easier to see on your own than it is to see it here in the camera. All right, there's that crease. Flatten out my batting. Okay, now you can see the crease on the top here and the crease there is just a little bit over, so I need to shift things just a tiny bit. So I'm just gonna use my fingers.

Okay, there's that crease and there's that. All right, let's check. Right there, I'm gonna put a pin through the crease on the back. There, is it coming through? It sure is, right on.

So, I'm gonna take my safety pin. It helps to have a bunch of safety pins ready to go. And go ahead and open them. There's nothing harder than holding this and trying to open a safety pin at the same time. You don't wanna do that.

So if you look here, I've got them all open. Obviously, I'm gonna stick myself a couple times, but if you're a quilter, you know that's part of the deal. Okay, so I've got that one done. Now I'm gonna go to the opposite end. So I've gone past my center one and I'm just smoothing down, making sure my backing is flat, my batting is flat, get my pins.

Okay, you do the same thing down here. Let's see, where is the fold on this one? Well, this one's pretty easy to see. See how it just comes right along there? It starts, you can just follow it right out there.

I'm gonna put my little guide pin on there. It's gonna help me to find it. Okay. Bring that batting down. Now along here, it's right there.

Okay, again, just like I was before, it's a little off center. You can see this pin here and you see that crease, so I'm just gonna move it a little bit until I think they're lined up. Do they look lined up to you? I think they're pretty close. So I'm gonna see.

This is how I'm gonna check. I'm coming again from the back. I'm coming right through the crease, which looks like I've got two, but it's really this one right here. So I'm gonna come through that crease and see if I'm in the center of the other one. Not quite, so I'm gonna move this over a little bit more until I can get that crease where that pin is.

Okay. So now that I know where I need to go, I'm just gonna move it like that. There's my pin. It's through both creases. And I have to now work around that, get that batting and backing, oops, there we go, all smoothed, there's my pin, okay.

So I can take that pin out and use a safety pin right there. If you're making a quilt and you want blocks to exactly align, your blocks of course are gonna all have to be the same size and it's gonna have to be the same setup. So you're gonna, if you had a five-block-by-seven-block quilt on the top, you want those blocks to align. The easiest thing is if you have the same grid, the five-by-seven, and the same sized block. You can do it, as long as it mathematically agrees, with different sizes blocks, but it's a whole lot harder.

Okay, so I've done those two. Now I need to do the other axis. All right. So here's my crease. I can see it.

It's much easier to see if it's yours. It's right there. And here's my backing. Okay. My backing crease is right here.

I'm gonna do exactly what I did before. I'm coming up through with a pin. Now this pin's not showing. It's not coming in on a specific place this direction, only this direction. So when I bring it through, I'm not trying to show myself, I'm not looking at where it is here.

It doesn't have to line up with anything there. I'm just trying to make sure those creases line up. So here's my crease. Actually, it's pretty good, isn't it? There we go.

Flatten that out around and now I can keep that pin, I can take it out, and I'm gonna pin right here. Okay. I would do that on the fourth side as well. But instead of going through the whole thing, I'll show you the next step. The next step is gonna be pinning your border corners.

Okay. I made this quilt so the borders are the same exact, should be at the same point. If your borders, maybe this has a thin border and this has a wide border on the back, the point is, you need to keep it square. So I want, on this quilt, to exactly match my corners. What you're going to want to do, if one of your borders is bigger on the back, is to make sure you're on the same line diagonally.

That way, you know it's square. So what I'm going to do now, I'm putting a pin in from the top right in that corner and I'm holding it vertically. I'm gonna come back like this and see if I'm right at the same point on the back. I'm not. So, if you can see here, here's my pin, and I'm not quite at the corner.

So I'm gonna move that pin so it is at the corner right there. Remember you've got that 1/4-inch seam allowance, so the corner I'm looking for is right here. It's not there. It's right there. There's my pin, putting it right down through that corner.

Okay, see here it is on the back coming out the corner. I'm gonna hold that. Okay, again, I need that to be held vertically, just where it's supposed to be. Okay, and then, I'm smoothing everything around it again. Believe it or not, it will actually smooth out, unless your top is wonky.

I'm sure no one here makes wonky tops. Okay, there it is. I'm gonna take another pin, another safety pin. I'm gonna pin right there. Okay.

I'm gonna do the same thing down on this corner and on every other corner. Now, let's pretend I've got all four edges pinned where the creases were, and now I've got all of the corners pinned. Okay, the next thing you wanna do is align the borders along this area, anywhere your borders align, because they're your straight line. And they're the consistent thing. So what I'm going to do is put a pin down on the crease this time, back on that crease I had, through the crease and I'm hoping when I get to the back that it's through the same seam line as on the front.

So I'm gonna go the back and look. Here's my pin. It's off a lot. Do you see that? So I'm gonna go back here and I need to move my top a little bit.

There we go. I'm just gonna work that, and now I'm gonna try it again and see where I am. There we go, getting closer. So what I'm gonna do this time, I know where it needs to be, right there, through there, oops. It really is easier when you're not on camera.

Trust me. Okay, there we go. So I've got it along the back again. You can see it there. I'm gonna actually pull the pin out so it's just in the top and then go through where it needs to be and hold that there.

And I'm gonna move the quilt around that. There we go. Okay. Just like that. All right, and take another pin and pin it.

And I'm gonna do that all the way down the borders. I'm going to be working sort of in a way that does, oops. I'm gonna be working in a way where I do these two, then those two, and then kind of move out. If I do these two, I'll do the ones opposite it next and keep working from the center going out and out and out and out. When you have all those pins placed, when you have a pin about every six inches along all the borders, when you do the same thing on the edge, you're gonna come out and you're gonna pin your edges so you have a pin here and a pin there and you work on out, make sure your top is square.

So you're gonna wanna take one of your big rulers and lay it on the corner, making sure it's square. You've probably already squared up the top. It's what you would normally do before you sandwich, but just make sure that you kept that square top. And once they're pinned all over, you can pin baste however you want. Maybe you thread baste and it's the same thing.

You've got those pins and it's all holding it flat, and you just go ahead and use whatever basting you normally use. The other thing is, of course, if you are pin basting, make sure you remove pins as you approach that area when you're quilting, but don't take all of them out. If you take all them out, of course, it's like starting over. So remove them as you approach them. And you'll find that you can put a reversible quilt together pretty easily.

Now, once you finish quilting it, just like any other time, you have all this excess around the edges, including excess backing. Well, it's not gonna matter because if this is all lined up the way it's supposed to be on the back too with your seam, when you trim it off, your border will be the same width. You're just gonna trim like you always do, bind it and you'll find that your reversible quilt will be completely lined up, both front and back, and it's much easier than you might think. So have fun. And I hope you enjoy reversible quilts.