Short of Backing Fabric?

 

Quilt backs take a lot of fabric if you are using regular 115cm/45" quilting cotton.  It's pretty annoying when your top turns out to be just inches wider than that magic number because it generally means, inserting a strip into your backing or buying another length of fabric.  

Here is an interesting tutorial on widening your backing by cutting it on the diagonal.  I've never tried it because I usually opt for a wide backing.  I will do almost anything to avoid piecing a quilt back.  Once I am finished my top I am done with piecing.  However, I had a really nice backing fabric that I could have used for the heart quilt but we opted to use the extra blocks to lengthen and widen the top which made it too wide for the backing without piecing it.  I'm not happy with the wider navy fabric I used because it really picks up a lot of lint from the batting, I am worried about the colour running and also I could not adjust the tension sufficiently so that the top lighter thread does not show through on the back.  Had I come across this tutorial before I sandwiched the heart quilt I might have tried this backing trick.