Using polar fleece as your backing

Polar fleece backing,
originally uploaded by karenechow.

I love using polar fleece as the backing material for my quilts. I've now done this with one baby quilt, one wall hanging, and a table runner. To do this, I skip the batting, and only use polar fleece as the backing material. There's only two pieces of material to sew together, the quilt top, and the polar fleece.

Only buy non-pile polar fleece, because if you don't, it will pill easily, and then your quilt will look ratty. I most commonly use a stipple pattern through the whole quilt, and I find that it works best if I start from the center of the quilt, and stipple in a ring, going towards the outside.

Beginner's Guide to Quilting

I just started quilting in January 2007, and I thought that I would share a few tips with people on the things that I read about and discover on quilting.

I started by purchasing a learn to quilt package. This included:

cutting mat

rotary cutter

pattern for a cat quilt

acrylic ruler

pins

needles

thread

thimble

I separately purchased fabric. I bought the fabric from Michael's, who has fat quarters in sets of 5 coordinating fabrics. A fat quarter is a piece of material that is 18" x 22".

Here is my finished quilt. Quilt #1. I used pink, purple, and green fabric.

General tips:

Buy a beginnger's quilt package. It makes it easy for you to start and finish your first quilt, and you don't have to worry about missing supplies, and having to go back to the store.

Buy a coordinating package of material, so that you don't have to worry about which fabrics go well together. That's something that you can learn as you become more experienced with quilting. The fabric from the fat quarters at Michael's are very hight quality, but the selection is pitiful. The fat quarters from Joann's gives you better selection, but their fabric quality is questionable.