Beautiful Budget Backs

I have been asked how do I come up with my backs. This tutorial is my method of creating Beautiful Budget Backs. I hate spending money on 3 to 9 yards of fabric that I am not creating with. So I usually do one of three things:

1. Yardage that was on sale that I like.
2. A large print that I like but wont use on the front, the pinup girls is a good example of this.
3. Pieced backs with leftovers.

I made this back with my leftovers from the front and 1 yard of Black Kona Cotton from my stash. The front measures 42" x 48". I would need to purchase about 3 yards of fabric to make the back. This back measures 48" x 54".

First thing I do is dig out the pile of scraps I have left from making the front. I also get into my stash to see what I have that might work with the scraps. In this case I choose to use Black Kona Cotton. I sort my pile into groups, triangles, squares, and then matching size chunks. This is what I started with, plus the yard of black.

I decide to start with a center medallion for this one. When I choose to start with a center medallion I usually make it symmetrical. The reason I choose the square in a square block is because I had 4 equal sized triangles left over from bias piecing a set of border together.
This is where I made a mistake. I cut my Black and White print fabric BEFORE I finished my center block. They ended up to small to border the center block, so I moved them to try them out elsewhere. The black stripes size were decided by how big I could make my corner stones, the pink.
I needed filler for my Black and White corners. I was thinking of some sort of grid. Because of the size of the rectangles and the pink cornerstones I decided I wanted some stoppers too.
After I made the grid I wanted to try it out with the stoppers(top). I also wanted to make sure it was long enough for my center(bottom). If is wasn't long enough I would have added black on both ends to make longer.
For the sides it was a matter of which chunks were big enough to fill in the sides.
At this point I still need about 5 to 6 inches all around my quilt and most of my fabric is used up. I did still have one long stripe, 35", of the black, pink and white fabric and about 20" stripe of the stripe fabric. I decided with the amount of fabric that I had left that the long sides would be black and the short sides pieced. I tried my fabric out to see what I liked best. The top is with the stripes next to the print and I was going to put black on the ends. The bottom is using the stripe as cornerstones with black in between it and the print. I went with the cornerstones to continue the flow of the back.
This is my finished back. Once it is quilted I will trim it down. I try not to put too much into the last border since that is the one that will be cut off in the trimming.
This is all that is left of my pile of scraps and the yard of Black Kona Cotton.

As a side note I always keep 10 yards of Kona Cotton in White and Black in my stash. I also keep 3 yards of Kona Cotton in Snow in my stash. I do buy it at JoAnn's when it is on sale 50% off. There is a small color difference between the White and Snow. The Snow is more creamy that the bright White.