Wednesday, 11 June 2003

Anyone have any suggestions for ways to creatively use fat quarters or roughly equivalent amounts of fabric? I got a few fat quarters for my birthday (thanks, B!) and I occasionally order a couple, but I don't have any great ideas for how best to use them...

There are some patterns that specifically call for fat quarters. There's even a book called Fat Quarter ... something (tooo tired to find it now, but I'm sure an Amazon search would turn it up). Also, if you don't want to make them into a quilt, you can just serge or turn under the edges and make pretty dinner napkins from them. I did that with ones I knew I could never work into a quilt.

      Quilty comment by Dana on 12 June 2003

I collected fat quarters for quite a while until I figured out it was hard to fit them into a quilt-unless, you are into scrappy quilts..then they are very handy. They are also handy for exploring a block idea with..

      Quilty comment by Cher on 17 June 2003

Crochet a purse and use a fat quarter to line it! :)

      Quilty comment by Katxena on 20 June 2003

I use fat quarters on the back of baby quilts--just sew a bunch of them together--it gives the baby more things to look at.

      Quilty comment by mj on 25 July 2003

I like the idea of using FQ's for backing in baby quilts. Good idea.....Babies love to look at all sorts of things!

Sandy from Cincinnati

      Quilty comment by Sandy from Cincinati on 30 July 2003

The book is called Fat Quarter Friendly and the pictures in it are stunning. It is one of my favorites and I like to look through it for ideas. You generally need about 20 fat quarters to do one of the projects. (All quilts.) I believe there is a sequel to it as well.

The May/June 2004 issue of Love of Quilting featured the winners of their fat quarter challenge where the contestents had to make something out of a fat quarter. Unfortunatly the Fons and Porter website is sold out of that issue but you might be able to find it at your quilt store or on ebay. It doesn't seem to include instructions for the projects. Winning projects included things like a watch band, play tent, miniture quilt, sewing kit and a bowl.

      Quilty comment by wendy Darby on 11 August 2004

I have ended up playing around with the Mall Crawl and trying to find at least one block each day during my morning email reading and web surf. This evening, I was poking around a bit more and came across the site Everything Quilts. While browsing their Block of the Month quilts I found this stunning 8-block quilt. Tons of applique and clever quilting. I have no idea even how to begin such thing and I don't know when I'll ever get around to learning applique, but this quilt is really cool.

If I remember correctly, those blocks can all be done using fusible web, so assuming you don't mind the look of fused quilting, I'd say your next step is to try a few different types and see which you like best, then buy some really good ergonomic scissors for cutting out all of those tiny pieces. :)

      Quilty comment by Dana on 12 June 2003

I am working on that same BOM, it is awesome. I am using The Applique Pressing Sheet and Steam-a-
Seam 2 Lite for the fusible, both sides are sticky. On large pieces I cut
away the inner part of the fusible and leave only a small border. I put the Applique Sheet over the placement guide of the pattern and begin to
layer the pieces largest first. When happy with
the end result, press and then put the entire applique piece on the background. When using the applique sheet pressing does not attach it to the sheet, only pieces to each other. After the block is completed you can machine quilt it by outlining the edges (several stitches work). I plan to use decorative threads on mine. Since batiks are mainly used on this BOM there is almost no fraying of the outer edges. Some ladies are doing needle turn applique, but that would take me forever to complete.

      Quilty comment by Bonnie on 12 June 2003

Yellow Brick Road by Atkinson Designs is a perfect beginning quilt. It uses six fat quarters for the top. Lucky Stars by the same company uses 12 fat quarters, plus additional background material.

      Quilty comment by Jody on 7 September 2003