Perfect? NOT!

Well, LIVE AND LEARN!  My "perfect" backing for the Dinos on Parade quilt has some real logistic problems.  First off, I bought just enough fabric to back the quilt.  ALWAYS BUY EXTRA!!  I measured the quilt (measure twice, cut once, ok. I did that.)  I cut the fabric into 2 halves, now sew them together, backing is done!  WRONG!!  What did I forget in that scenario????  MATCHING THE PATTERN!  The backing fabric has large dinosaurs.  When I cut the fabric, aligned the edges, ready to sew, I noticed the discrepancy.  OHHHH!  Yeah, it'll be WAY BETTER to match the pattern, it will be much less noticeable that the backing was pieced.  Ok, I matched the pattern, but there was about a 6 inch jog in the fabric now, and since I had bought JUST ENOUGH, that 6 in jog at the top and bottom made the backing too short.  Six lousy inches too short! Booo hooo hooo!

  

Still plenty of width though, so I tried putting the quilt on sideways with the seam running horizontal instead of vertical.  IT FIT!!  with about an inch to spare at the top and bottom.   Whew!  BUT....  Geez,  The dinosaur pattern has one dinosaur that only faces one way. (It's the T-Rex, too.  We can't have the T-Rex laying on it's back, can we?!!)  All the others have some facing up, or down, or left, or right, so they could be oriented in either way.  But the T-Rex should be oriented only in one direction, or he would appear sideways on the backing.  What to do????  Here are my choices:

1. Give up.  (no)
2. Buy more fabric!  (no.)
3. Don't match the backing (no)
4. Fussy cut dinosaurs squares from the excess on the sides to match the pattern on the bottom and sew them on.  (Possibile, but I think that would look tacky.)
5. Put the quilt top on with the horizontal seam and hope no one notices the sideways dinosaurs. Would a kid notice? Probably not.  It's the BACK of the quilt, after all.  (Possible)
6. Cut the backing into large asymmetrical sections and join them again with strips of leftover fabric from the quilt front. (hmmmm....!) (no.)
7. Who says the quilt has to run with the grain of the fabric?   What if you "cocked" the quilt top on the background?  Wouldn't it look the the T-rex was just "leaning"?  Hard to envision this... (especially in the picture below, the quilt top should be at the other end...)  (well, no.  The seam would run at a diagonal and look goofy on the back.)

Another problem here is I don't know how to join the two pieces of fabric so that the seam from the back exactly attaches the pieces of dinosaurs.  I could match them up and TOPSTITCH them together, but then I'd have a line of thread running right down the middle of the dinosaurs.  The purpose of matching the pattern is to make is LESS noticeable.  So here's how I finally did it:

I over lapped the pieces, aligning the matching design.  Then I pressed about a 1/2 inch seam allowance under  on the top piece of fabric, and rematched the design. I pinned as close to the seam edge as possible.  I flipped the fabric over, and found that seam allowance underneath, and now pinned that down too.  Going back to the front, I removed the first set of pins which were very close to the seam.  Now I found the pinned seam allowance underneath again, and found the crease of that seam allowance.  I sewed right in the crease.  The larger seam allowance allowed me to sew right past the pins.  It wasn't perfect, but still not that noticeable in the long run.

I have decided to go with choice #5.  Sew it on sideways and who cares if the T-Rexes are sideways.  My guess is that few people will notice.  If you flip a corner over to look at the back, the T-Rex would be standing upright! 

 Let's get it done!