I've had this happen. I think the batting causes my creeping problem. What happens for me is that when I baste the quilt, it takes a tiny bit more fabric to go over the curve of the "puffiness," or I guess loft, of the batting. When I then quilt it more closely, the fabric has to lay flatter which causes a wrinkle. And it's this "wrinkle" that works it way out to the border and can result with the top and bottom not lining up as planned. When I switched to a thin cotton bat, my problem disappeared.

beckyezra wrote:
I dunno, maybe porridge would help to stop the backing from crawling, not so certain about the puckering though...

och guys, with my dyslexia i read baking craw and porridge ....i hope that i am not cynile in addition to dyslexia....

Thanks for the input from all of y'all. Both the sheet and the batting were 100% cotton. I thing the sheet was the bad guy. Will use that fabric in small pieces from now on.

It also may be that the sheet itself is not 100% cotton. If it's part poly, then it may be contributing to the creeping.

Only used a bed sheet one time..for someone else ! Hard to stitch ..breaking thread...and the creaping may
be due to the sheet, too. Vowed never to do it again..tho I know folks do it all the time.

I have always heard (of course this could be a myth like polyester thread will cut your quilt!!!) that repurposed sheets are not good backings because they are a totally different thread count than the cotton we use for our quilting and will cause various problems. Never had anyone mention the creeping issue but have heard many others. Early on in my "quilting life" before I had a clue what I was doing I used a sheet for a backing but I tied that quilt. I found it was hard to stitch through because of the tightness of the knit but by that time it was too late and I had to soldier on and finish. The quilt is still on our bed (seventeen or eighteen years later) and if you only look at the front it looks okay. I think Margo is right about the type of batting also being a problem. I have only used polyester batting a few times and every time had issues so gave that up for all cotton or 80/20 batting. Good luck in solving your problem, Hugs, Ann

Sharon it sounds like you have made a good effort to stabilize the layers, but I'm wondering if maybe you used a polyester batting?
I find that using a cotton batting (or 80/20 blend) reduces the amount of "crawl" in the fabrics.

I've never tried to use a sheet for a backing and wonder also if that may have been part of the problem?

Hope someone else can offer some suggestions.

A baby quilt project has given me fits because the backing has moved and now the final border will have a puckers no matter all my efforts to stabalize the sandwich. I used basting spray and water soluable thread basting to start. Added pins at times. The backing material is repurposed cloth - a section of 400 thread count sheet. Should I have starched the backing before I used it? Any more thoughts?