Do you detest the appearance of meander, or just get bored doing it? #curious

You sew SO many quilts...in the time you did that, I did 0! LOL!!!! They all look great!

Ya know, Mel ... there are 2 reasons: 1 ... I just don't like the LOOK of it and 2 ... it's trickier than it seems because you need to get that "jigsaw puzzle" look going correctly so that there is no discernable pattern.   A proper random is difficult.  Generally speaking, I don't like "difficult".  :-)

Having said that, if you start at the upper left corner and work your way to the lower right corner AND THEN .... here's the magic ... follow the meander you just stitched back up on itself, *intentionally* criss-crossing the meander line.  What you get is a "ribbon meander".  Boy it really does look like a twisted ribbon.  Now *that* I like!  Why didn't I do a ribbon meander for that quilt?  Pure laziness!  I wanted to get the quilt bound.  :-)

I like it on those quilts you use a lot. It's loose and cozy. But I get your point, totally :D 

what I did this weekend.  wedding gift, sofa quilt for a black sofa.

Would I be out of line to suggest a maroon or burgundy backing fabric?

not out of line at all.  I know, it feels very bleak to me as well - though not as bad in person as in a photo.  I was planning on doing either minky or a very fluffy fleece for the backing, so the color depends on what I can find.  I figure if I make it very cuddly they will appreciate it more.  They are in Tennessee so it does get a little colder there than TX.   There is a place in Fort Worth that carries wide fleece & minky though it's pricey.  But since a gift I don't mind.  A good part of this has come from my stash so just an investment of time.  (yeah, I could have been working on another jigsaw puzzle - grin).

Oh, my goodness, a minky backing sounds perfect!

yup, I figured even if they didn't really appreciate the quilt they'd enjoy the minky.  I've not ever done a minky backing before so we'll see how it goes.  I understand there are tricks, I'll have to search the internet.

Dee in TX (DBRADFOR3) said:

I understand there are tricks, I'll have to search the internet.

Minky is a knit, much like fleece.   The cut edge is REALLY stretchy.  What I've done is sewn a strip of muslin onto the cut edge so it *won't* stretch.   The muslin strip is going to be cut off when the quilt is squared up, so you can even do an overlap seam rather than a conventional seam.  The overlap part doesn't create a ridge the way a conventional seam will.   If that muslin strip is sufficiently close to the the edge of the top, then the machine carriage will tend to get hung up on the side tensioners ... and that's obnoxious.

But, that's a work-around that has worked nicely for me.  You don't need the muslin strips on the selvage edge, as they are already non-stretchy.