Simple Tips to Prepare Your Quilting Fabric

This blog accompanies the Week Three videos in my YouTube "Design-A-Long" series. For more explanation and to see these steps in action, click here to watch. 

Fabric Shopping!
The best part of making a quilt is going shopping for the fabric you want that will help you achieve the final look of your pattern. Fabric can be acquired from a quilt store, craft store, big box store like Walmart, or from someone looking to destash their supply.

The best fabric options for quilting is to use 100% cotton fabric that is woven.
* avoid knits and stretchy materials

You can also shop for fabric around your house too. If you have old clothing that is suitable,  you might want to use that. For a period of time, quilting was used to recycle worn out items. The good parts were cut out and used to make a quilt, old blankets that needed some new life were converted into batting.

Fabric Prep
​Once you have gathered your fabric, there are a few things to do before cutting it up.

1. Decide if you are going to wash it or not. Lots of people do and lots of people don’t. I rarely wash any fabric that I acquire.
2. Press your fabric - you want to use your iron and ironing board to give that fabric a good press so all the creases and wrinkles are smoothed out.
3. If you have washed your fabric or find that it is very soft, you might want to consider using starch of some kind. I use Mary Ellen’s Best Press but there are a lot of other starch options out there that are great. To use starch, lightly spray your fabric, let it dry, and then iron. The starch will give an extra stiffness which can be helpful when cutting and sewing your fabric.

Click here for the fabric prep video

Test Quilt Blocks
Before you jump into cutting up your fabric for your quilt, take some scraps or if you are new to quilting and don’t have scraps, make sure to browse the clearance and discount areas for the cheapest cottons you can find. You want to have some cheap fabric options for testing out your blocks before you start on the good ones.
A test block will let you double check your math and piecing instructions are good. If you come across any issues during your test assembly, you can trouble shoot them without having cut up a lot of money. Click here for the video that talks about sewing a sample block. 

Cutting the Good Stuff
Your test blocks turned out and it’s time to cut the good stuff. Remember the old rule of measure twice and cut once. This very much applies to quilting since your supplies are limited. The more accurate you are in the cutting, the better your blocks will be.

1. Make sure you know your cutting plan. Your piecing method is going to help determine this. If your quilt uses a lot of strips sets, then you want to make sure you cut your fabric in a way that optimizes that. I go over strip sets in the YouTube videos for week three.
2. Do you need to make templates? If you aren’t using grid rulers for cutting, then you will need to make templates. Take your time to make sure that they are accurate. If you have a crooked template and fabric pieces, that will cause a lot of frustration when you go to piece your quilt top.
3. If you are using grid rulers and rotary blades, make sure you have a sharp blade. You will also want to square up your fabric before you cut your pieces so you have straight cuts and no waste.

Click here for the corresponding YouTube video