Back to back to back

So before I tell you all about the back, let's talk about the firsts! 

As you are probably aware, I love to find geocaches. Now I'm not a huge geocache person as I haven't hit 600 yet, but I like to do it from time to time. And it's something fun to do in a location you are visiting. As with all things I love, there are many ways to measure what you do - the number of caches you find, the level of difficulty, the size of the container, and many other things. One thing that has eluded me is the FTF, which stands for FIRST TO FIND. 

What does that mean? After someone places a cache, if you have your e-mail notifications set up, you'll get a notice that a new cache has been placed. It'll tell you how far away it is from your location. I checked my e-mail this morning to find one that is .19 miles from my house. OH - has anyone else found it? 

I checked, and so far, no one had logged it. Let's just say that I breezed through that blog post yesterday morning, grabbed Murphy, and we did the walk in reverse so we could get to the cache quicker. I was practically pulling Murphy instead of the other way around. OK -- so that's a lie, but thankfully, she likes to hustle. 

We arrived and quickly found the cache in the forest, and we were the FIRST TO FIND it!  Yeah, me and Yeah, Murphy!!!!

FTF!

I will say that Murphy was way more interested in the squirrels than she was in the container. That dog needs better training! Oh -- she's good with training, as long as you have a treat! 

Murphy and the geocache

And it's a good thing we did what we did because as I found it, someone was on their way and logged in shortly after I was there!

So this brings up a shameful moment. Years ago (TEN years ago - August 18, 2012), I was in New Brunswick and picked up this travel bug from a geocache. What's a travel bug? There's a tracking number on the back of that little frog, which is attached to Bart Simpson, and the idea is that the bug gets moved from cache to cache. This little guy has traveled close to 20,000 KM across the US and then it came to Canada. 

A travel bug

I brought it home and promptly lost it in the office. Sigh...   In my decluttering, I found the travel bug, and I contacted the owner to ask if he wanted it back or release it back into a geocache. He said to put it back into circulation. So I plan on taking a picture somewhere in particular before I release into the geocaching world! 

OK -- enough about geocaching. It's time to talk back! Not my back, not your back, but QUILT backs. 

I'd sit down before you read further because you'll be exhausted. I know I was -- just getting this all together. 

Let's start off with a couple of the backs of customer quilts. This was a sports-themed quilt, and the backing is large pieces of sports fabric. 

The back of a customer quilt

I finished this customer quilt two days ago.  

Customer quilt - DONE

The back of it was pieced with extra blocks. 

The back of the customer quilt

I finished this customer quilt yesterday. 

Customer quilt - DONE

While the back wasn't anything too out of the ordinary, I had to make the backing. The quilt is race car themed and the customer couldn't find anything she liked for the back. 

 

Race cars

I said I might have just the thing, and this is what I found in my stash of quilt backings. So I sold her the fabric, made the backing on her behalf, and it's quilted and trimmed and ready to be delivered later this week! Now, how is that for service? And I used some of my fabric!

The backing of the customer quilt

Then it was time to work on some quilt backs for me. The quilt tops were piling up a wee bit, so during the Virtual Retreat, I decided to get to work. I had searched and couldn't find something suitable for my Wonderful Woodland, which is very strange. So I checked out the baskets of flannel to see if something would work. I found this pile of fabric. As I mentioned, it was in strips and lots of it. 

Fabric pulled to make a backing

I measured, sliced, and diced until VOILA -- I had a quilt backing that was the right size. 

My pieced backing for the Wonderful Woodland quilt

You can't see it, but there are a lot of seams across the width of that backing, and I'm perfectly OK with that. You'll see the top later, and I made the binding the same day I made the backing. 

Lots of seams in that backing!

This is all that was left of that pile of fabric, and it went into the flannel scrap bin and will go to a good home. 

The leftovers from making the backing

Then it was onto the backing for the Among the Stars Again quilt. I couldn't find anything suitable in the stash, but I did have LOTS of leftover fabrics, so I figured, let's go for it, and pieced the backing from several different prints. 

The pieced backing for Among the Stars Again

I still had all this fabric leftover, which is now in the appropriate stash bin. Green or grey? I put it in the green bin. That would be the bin with the green fabric, not technically the green bin for compost! I should qualify that as well, this is NOT left over, meaning the pattern was overly generous, it means I had a whack of this fabric and make the quilt top and the backing and still have left over. I could make a small coordinated quilt from it. Hmmm -- perhaps I'll dig this back out and send it to Diane! I should quilt the darn thing before I do that! 

Left over fabric from my project

And I'm still working on the little triangles cutoffs to make half-square triangles. This is the quilt that I'm waiting on for the binding, but it's not like I'm going to quilt that quilt tomorrow, so no rush. Even if I quilted it tomorrow, there would be no rush to put the binding on!

Half-square triangles in progress

Phew -- that's a lot of backings, but WAIT. I'm not done!

I had this stack of backings ready to put on the shelf, but they had NOT been measured. 

Backing fabrics - not measured

That won't do, so they got measured and labeled. Now, this is much more useful! Even though I don't have a ton of room to store those backings, it might just be the time to start going through the stash ins and pull anything that is huge yardage that can be used for a backing. I seem to be needing backing fabric more than anything else these days. Maybe, I'll start one basket at a time. See what I mean by there always being something to organize. The more you have, the more time it takes to manage it and make it useful! But it's so much better than it was!

The backings are now measured and labeled

My Long Time Gone has been sitting here forever without the backing or the binding made. The backing fabric was pulled, so I also measured and cut that. 

The backing fabric for Long Time Gone

I found some fabric suitable for the binding, and that one got moved to the "to be quilted" pile. 

Long Time Gone in the "to be quilted" pile

That left these two projects that still needed to be tackled. 

Two more projects to tackle

I found the perfect backing for my All in a Row quilt, which was a sew-along in 2021. It has cute owls on it, and it is bright. It's not just owls, but they are very prominent. 

The owls on my All in a Row quilt

Look at what I found. I mean, is this not perfect???? 

The backing fabric

And so the backing got made for that one as well. 

Another one hits the "to be quilted" pile

I'm working on the second quilt in that photo, but there's no time to tell you about that one right now. 

So much can be done when you're on a roll and have nothing to distract you. I got one more writing assignment out the door, but I must start another big one and soon! I've been puttering around with other paperwork that needs to be done and I'll get a bit more done today. 

If you want to see a really intense pieced quilt back, check out the back of Darlene's quilt. This is the BACK. That's intense -- I think she used every little leftover scrap she had, and I swear it took her longer to do the back than it did to make the front! Thankfully, I don't get that intense!

The BACK of Darlene's quilt

An FYI about my quilt backs -- I piece then vertically or horizontally -- whichever way makes the most sense. Sometimes, you have no choice if the print is directional. Once that seam is done, I fold it up and put it with the quilt top. I do NOT press it at that time. Why bother, when I'll likely have to repress it when I load it on the long arm. There is ZERO double work in this house if I can avoid it! 

Phew -- I'm off for another productive and busy day. Oh, I did grab a few things from Studio U and put them in their proper place. I WILL get through that, but I needed to take a break. Spin class -- it's time for spin class! 

Have a super day!!!!

Ciao!!!