You need to know the length of each side of your quilt before you start.<\/p>\n
A=Top of quilt
\nB= bottom of quilt
\nC\/D= sides of quilt<\/p>\n
Enlarge the photo below to get a visual of which side is which.<\/p>\n Cut your facing pieces as follows:<\/p>\n A: 4-5 inches x width of quilt Jeri uses 2.5 inches for her width and presses in a hem. I didn’t want to press a hem, so I doubled the width of the facing (the 4-5 inches number) so I could fold it in half and wouldn’t have to press a hem. This also means the raw edges are secured under a machine seam. You can do it either way.<\/p>\n You can also change the 4-5 inches size of the A\/B pieces depending on whether you have a large quilt or a small quilt. I used 5 inches on my 1-2-3 Mosaic table runner and it felt really large. If I were doing it again, I’d use 4 inches.<\/p>\n C: 5″ x width of quilt minus 3-4 inches One of the things I really had a hard time understanding in Jeri Riggs’ tutorial was the difference between what I needed do on the top\/bottom (designated as A and B) versus the left\/right sides (designated as C & D). The whole idea for the different facing sizes is to reduce bulk in the corners.<\/em><\/p>\n Make the C\/D pieces shorter because you want to reduce the bulk in the corners. The C\/D pieces need to be covered by the A\/B pieces, but only by enough so there are no raw edges. Before sewing, the C\/D facings will be positions on top of the A\/B pieces.<\/p>\n Cutting facings: For the A\/B (top\/bottom) of the quilt cut a facing rectangle that covers the entire top or entire bottom from side to side and is your preferred width. I cut mine, as noted above 4-5 inches for large quilts multiplied by the width of the quilt. Adjust as necessary.<\/p>\n The photo, left, shows the trimmed long (edge to edge) facing clipped to the side of the quilt.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sewing<\/strong><\/p>\n Once the facing pieces are laid out, trimmed and pinned, I machine sewed one facing to the top (A) and the bottom (B).<\/p>\n Nota bene<\/em>: The only reason I flipped the bottom of the quilt over (photo right) is because I have a small sewing table. You don’t need to do this. If you have a large sewing table, you only need to flip it if it is creating drag on the quilt as you sew it.<\/p>\n Nota bene<\/em>: This is a small piece and I would recommend trying the process out on a small piece so you get the feel of the process. If you have an unused machine quilting test piece, it would be a perfect piece to use to try this technique out. <\/p>\n On Sides C & D, only sew along the long side of the facing. The raw edge of the short side of the facing will be covered by facings on Sides A & B once you flip the facings to the back.<\/p>\n Now the machine sewing is complete and you are ready to flip the facings to the back of the quilt.<\/p>\n Optional<\/em>: trim diagonally across the corners<\/p>\n After you complete the machine sewing you flip all the facings to the back.<\/p>\n Press the edge of the facing (where you machine sewed) so that the facing stays on the back.<\/p>\n Poke out the corners .<\/p>\n If necessary, pin the facings to the back of the quilt. This keeps it in place until the hand sewing is complete.<\/p>\n Hand sew the facings to the back of the quilt.<\/p>\n The picture to the right shows the quilt after I flipped Sides C & D. Look at the bottom right hand corner (by the green olive) and you can see the seam with the batting. <\/p>\n The picture below shows how the piece looks after you flip all the facings.<\/p>\n The picture above also shows how the quilt looks when the facing has been completed.<\/p>\n One thing about this process is that the facing becomes a design element on the back depending on what fabric you use. In House & Garden<\/a>, above, I used the same fabric for the facing that I used for the back, which made it less obtrusive. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Updated 2026 – This update uses two different projects to illustrate the process. I started out with Jeri Riggs’ directions sometime in 2009, which Maureen pointed out to me. You need those directions. I made changes to her process. My additions to Jeri’s post comprises the info below. You need to know the length of … Continue reading “Facing Tutorial”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[389],"tags":[16,321,359],"class_list":["post-1885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-389","tag-finishing","tag-lessonsteaching","tag-tutorial"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artquiltmaker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artquiltmaker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artquiltmaker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artquiltmaker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artquiltmaker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1885"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/artquiltmaker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1885\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71402,"href":"https:\/\/artquiltmaker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1885\/revisions\/71402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artquiltmaker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artquiltmaker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artquiltmaker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Facing](\"https:\/\/artquiltmaker.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/PICT3979sm-anno-255x300.jpg\")
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\nB: 4-5 inches x width of quilt<\/p>\n\n
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\nD: 5″ x width of quilt minus 3-4 inches<\/p>\n![\"Trim](\"https:\/\/artquiltmaker.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/05\/20260623_150252_wm-sm-300x205.jpg\")
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