I love fat quarters for quilting, well I love any kind of precut fabric. Especially if it comes in a fabric bundle. But, fat quarters are a popular choice for making a beautiful quilt, and they’re also great for other sewing projects.
In the world of quilting fat quarters are great to have in your fabric stash. Because they can be used for so many different quilts, and they’re great for other projects.
And you can get so many different colors and designs of fat quarters. So, you can create any color scheme of quilt you want.
While it might be harder to find other fabric bundles like a charm pack, layer cakes and jelly roll at fabric stores. Every fabric shop will have fat quarters, in singles or in bundles.
What I love about fat quarters is that the curated fat quarter bundles are coordinated. That means that the fabric of the bundles go together and look great together.
The number of fat quarters in a bundle depend on the bundles. You can get from 5 to 50 fat quarters in a bundle.
Read this post on “How Many Charm Packs Do I Need For A Quilt.”
Save on your Pinterest for later Here.
* This Post may contain affiliate links.*
What are fat quarters?
Before we get into quilting with fat quarters, first let’s talk about what fat quarters are.
Fat quarters are a piece of fabric that is 18″ by 22″ or 18″ by 21″ depending on the width of the fabric. A fat quarter is a quarter yard of fabric and fat quarters will have the selvage edges still on them.
To make your own fat quarters all you need to do is cut a half-yard off the bolt of fabric. Then cut the fabric in half again on the fold and you have a fat quarter. Like I said before all fabric store have fat quarters. I know my local fabric store has quite a few fat quarter bundles to choose from.
I love This fat quarter bundle. One of my favorite brands of fabric is Moda, I love all their fabric collections and that you can get different bundles of fabric.
What can you do with fat quarters?
This post is mainly about fat quarters for quilting projects. But, what else can you do with fat quarters?
Here below is a list of future projects you can make with fat quarters.
- One of the things I love to make with fat quarters is scrunchies. And I have made I don’t know how many scrunchies out of fat quarters. And a single fat quarter will make 4 scrunchies.
- Sunglasses case
- Pin cushion
- Pencil case
- Coin purses
- Tea towels
- Napkins
- Drawstring bags
And these are just a few of the things you can make. You can find tons of different blog posts with round-ups of free fat quarters sewing projects and fat quarter quilts.
How many fat quarters do I need?
That depends on the size of quilt you are making. Because a baby quilt will not take as much fabric as a king size quilt.
The amount of fabric will also depend on the kind of quilt blocks you are wanting to make. Whether you want intricate designs or a simple, easy quilt pattern or if you’re going to do some fussy cutting.
So, it would be a good idea to buy a couple extra fat quarters to be on the safe side to make sure you have enough fabric. Because even if you don’t use them now they can be used on other projects later.
I’m the type that likes to buy extra fabric just to make sure I have enough. But, if you’re going to use additional fabric that’s not fat quarters then you won’t need as many.
The amount of fat quarters
Here below is the amount of fat quarters you’ll need to make different quilt sizes.
- For a baby quilt you’ll need 6 to 8 fat quarters.
- A throw quilt or lap quilt will need about 12 to 15 fat quarters.
- For a queen size quilt you’ll need about 30 to 35 fat quarters.
- For a king size quilt you’ll need about 35 to 40 fat quarters.
And there are some quilts that are written specially for fat quarters and the pattern instructions will tell you how many fat quarters you will need for the quilt along with the finished quilt dimensions.
And whenever you go to cut out your quilt pieces remember to add a seam allowance. A seam allowance for a quilt top is 1/4″.
A good starting point is to figure out the size of the quilt you want to make first. Then you know how many fat quarters you’ll need. And the first step of creating your fun quilt is to cut up the fabric. So, to make things easier I like to use a rotary cutter and cutting mat.
