Quilting Fabrics

Everything cut and ready to piece

Fat quarters, bundles, jelly rolls, charm packs and single prints — the pre-cut formats patchwork patterns are actually written around, so the slowest part of starting a quilt is already done.

A fat quarter is a quarter-metre taken as a wide rectangle rather than a narrow strip, which yields far more usable shape for cutting blocks. A jelly roll is a set of uniform strips from one coordinated range. A bundle collects several fat quarters in a palette someone has already worked out.

Why coordination matters more than colour

Choosing six or ten prints that sit together is the hardest part of starting a quilt, and it is the part that decides whether the finished top looks deliberate or busy. Buying within one range or one bundle answers it in a single purchase, because the designer has already balanced the scale and the palette.

Blenders and plains do the quiet work between the feature prints — sashing, borders and backgrounds. Without them a quilt of strong prints has nowhere for the eye to rest.

Backings and wadding

Two things are easy to leave until last and shouldn't be. Extra-wide backing fabric saves piecing a seam across the back of a full-size quilt, and the wadding you choose decides the finished feel more than anything else: cotton presses flat for a traditional low-loft look, polyester is lighter and puffier. Check the maximum quilting distance on the wadding — quilted more sparsely than that, it will shift and bunch in the wash.