Welcome to the world of quilting. If you have just picked up your first rotary cutter, you might feel like quilters speak a foreign language. Fear not! This guide will have you talking like a seasoned quilter in no time.
Quilting Terminology For Beginners
Quilt Building Blocks
Quilt Top: This is the pretty side that everyone sees. The patchwork masterpiece you will spend hours piecing together.
Batting: The fluffy middle layer that makes your quilt warm. Batting comes in different thicknesses (loft) and materials (cotton, bamboo, polyester, wool, or combinations like 80/20).
Quilt Backing: The bottom layer of your quilt. Your backing can be pieced together like your quilt top, or you could purchase a wideback fabric which is 108” in width in order so that you don’t have to piece your back. Either option is fine.
Binding: The fabric strip that wraps around the edge of your quilt like a frame. Its purpose is to envelope the raw edges of your quilt. It’s the finishing touch in quilt making, and my least favourite step.
Fabric Talk
Selvage: The tightly woven finished edge on both ends of your fabric. It will have the manufacturer’s information, the name of the fabric and sometimes the colours used to create the fabric printed on it. You will cut it off before cutting your strips into pieces.
Grain: The direction of the threads in your fabric. Lengthwise grain runs parallel to the selvage and does not stretch much. Cross grain runs perpendicular and has some stretch. Bias is on the diagonal and has the most stretch. You will deal with bias when you make triangles and you have to be careful to not stretch your blocks out of shape.
Width of Fabric: The measurement from selvage to selvage, typically between 40-44 inches for quilting cotton.
Fat Quarter: Typically measures at 18” x 22” depending on the WOF. It is a quarter yard of fabric cut in a specific way that gives you more usable fabric than a regular quarter yard. It is many quilter’s favorite precut.
Precuts: Fabric that comes precut in specific sizes like Charm Packs (5″ squares), Layer Cakes (10″ squares), or Jelly Rolls (2.5″ strips). While they are very handy, especially for those that struggle with choosing a colour palette for their projects, many precut bundles are cut poorly resulting in loss of fabric. Always look at reviews before buying precuts.
Cutting and Piecing Terms
Rotary Cutter: A pizza cutter for fabric. This very sharp, circular blade attached to a handle makes cutting straight lines easier than using scissors. Always use your rotary cutter with a self-healing cutting mat!
Cutting Mat: A self-healing mat that protects your table and keeps your rotary cutter blade sharp. Cutting mats are covered with a grid, but in order to use it to measure, first make sure it is accurate, because many are not. Crazy!
Cutting Ruler: A clear acrylic ruler with markings which come in many sizes and shapes. Beginner quilters should purchase a long ruler (6” x 24”) and a 6” square ruler. The long ruler will be used to cut yardage purchased off the bolt while the 6” square will be used to sub cut the strips you cut with the long ruler.
Quilting Ruler: Also a clear acrylic ruler, but used with a ruler foot on a domestic sewing machine or long arm quilting machine. Quilting rulers come in basic shapes as well as complicated shapes. A quilting ruler must be used with a ruler foot. Do not get these two types of rulers mixed up, and please don’t use a cutting ruler as a quilting ruler (even if they do it on YouTube!)
Seam Allowance: The space between your stitching line and the edge of your fabric. In quilting, this is a quarter inch seam, and it is important to be consistent. Many will seek perfection, but I think it is way more important to be consistent.
Chain Piecing: Feeding fabric pairs through your sewing machine one after another without cutting the thread between them. You end up with a little fabric chain that saves both time and thread. Snip them apart when you are finished sewing your pairs.
Nesting Seams: How to get seams really flat so they fit together perfectly. When pressing rows, press the top row to the right and the bottom row to the left. When you put the rows together, those center seams will nest nicely because the seam allowances go in different directions.
Pressing: Pressing your seams does not equal ironing your seams. Pressing means placing the iron down on your seam and leaving it there for a few seconds before picking it up again. The act of ironing can result in skewed blocks, particularly triangle blocks. There is a very important distinction between pressing and ironing.
Pattern and Design
Block: A single design unit that is sewn together and combined with other blocks to make a quilt top.
Sashing: Strips of fabric sewn between blocks. Sashing gives your eyes a place to rest and makes your quilt look more organized.
Border: Fabric strips added around the edges of your quilt top, similar to a frame around a painting. You can add one border or multiple borders.
Setting: How you arrange your blocks to create your overall quilt design. There are a number of ways to do this including: straight, on point, sashed, etc.
Half Square Triangle (HST): Two squares sewn together and then cut apart to create two half square triangles. They appear in countless quilt patterns and there are a number of methods you can use to make them.
Flying Geese: A rectangular unit with one large triangle pointing up and two smaller triangles on the sides. They look like geese in flight. They are very popular and very easy to make.
Finishing Touches
Quilting: The actual stitching that holds the three layers together. This is different from piecing (sewing the quilt top together). Quilting can be done by hand, with a home sewing machine, or on a longarm machine.
Basting: Temporarily holding your quilt sandwich (3 layers) together before quilting. This can be thread basting, pin basting or spray basting. If using spray basting, make sure you do so in a well ventilated space.
Stippling: A type of free motion quilting that creates a random, meandering pattern of curves. It looks organic and helps hide small imperfections.
Free Motion Quilting: Free motion quilting is achieved by dropping the feed dogs on your machine, which puts the quilter in charge of moving the quilt. Their hands need to move in time with the machine and it does take some practice to get good at. They can create many different types of designs with free motion quilting.
Walking Foot Quilting: Attach a walking foot to a machine and quilt this way instead. Create both straight line and curved quilting designs with a walking foot.
Long Arm Quilting: Usually refers to a long arm machine mounted on a long frame (10’-14’). The three quilt layers are loaded separately onto the frame with no prior basting required. With the use of robotics, the sky is the limit of the patterns that can be long arm quilted.
Squaring Up: After quilting, trimming the quilt to make sure all edges are straight and corners are 90 degree angles. This is done prior to binding the quilt.
You may also need to square up the blocks prior to sewing the quilt top.
Fun Stuff
Stash: Your personal fabric collection that you definitely need, even though you haven’t used last year’s purchases yet. Most quilters have one, and there’s no judgment here.
UFO (Unfinished Object): That quilt project sitting in the corner giving you guilty looks. We all have them. Some quilters have entire bins of them. You’re in good company here
WIP (Work in Progress): Like UFO’s but another way quilters categorize their unfinished projects.
Quilt Police: Real or imaginary critics who will judge your quilting choices. Unfortunately, many quilt guilds have their share of Quilt Police who love to talk their minds. The worst kind of Quilt Police are the ones in our heads. Try to ignore the Quilt Police and create what makes you happy!
S.A.B.L.E (Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy): When you have accumulated more fabric than you could possibly use in your lifetime. Worn as a badge of honour by serious quilters everywhere. Really!
A Few Things Before You Go
Don’t let all these terms intimidate you. You don’t need to memorize everything before you start. Jump in, make a simple project, and the vocabulary will become second nature as you get going. After all, the best way to learn quilting terminology is to actually quilt!
Now grab your rotary cutter (carefully!), pick out some fabric, and start piecing together your first blocks. Before you know it, you will be explaining to your friends what “nesting seams” means and why your HSTs are perfect. Happy quilting!
One Last Thing
Is getting started quilting on your to do list, but you don’t own a sewing machine yet? Let me help you.
In my new Your First Sewing Machine Checklist you will find what you need, what you can skip, what can wait for later and 4 beginner-friendly machine recommendations.
Click here to get yours today.
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