Quilting Terms Explained
Anchor Fabric – The piece of fabric used during the piecing process. Used to hold all fabric pieces together when machine piecing.
Appliqué – Not specific to quilting, this term describes using smaller pieces of fabric in a decorative way that is stitched to the face of a quilt. Sun Bonnett Sue’s quilts are fine examples of appliqué.
Backing Fabric – The base fabric for your finished quilt.
Bargello Quilting – The use of fabric strips to give the look of a wave to your quilt.
Basting – A stitch style used to temporarily hold the three layers together. Some quilt crafters will tack, pin or use sticky spray as an alternative to needle basting.
Batting – The middle or wadding layer of your quilt.
Bearding – Never joyful. This is the term used to describe batting fibers
separating and working through to the face or base side of your quilt. Polyester wadding is a known culprit.
Beeswax – Used to coat quilting thread to make it stronger and deter knotting during use.
Betweens – These are short quilting needles. Sizes 9, 10 or 12 are common.
Binding – Used to create quilt edges. It is essential to cut binding on the bias to avoid pulling out of shape and frays.
Blanket Stitch – A style of sewing originally used to edge blankets and prevent fraying. Blanket stitches are also used as a decorative stitch as well as to secure pieces of appliqué.
Block – A section of patchwork that is usually, but not always, square.
Border – The fabric strips used between blocks and/or on the top, bottom, and sides.
Chain Sewing – A continual thread used to sew pieces together without finishing off and re-starting.
Chain Stitch – An embroidery stitch that resembles a chain.
Cheaters Cloth – Fabric which looks like it is made of patchwork, but which is actually printed.
Color Scheme – Achromatic (black white and grey only), cool (blues, purples and greens), warm (earthy tones), monochromatic (all in one tone or color range), analogous (neighboring colors on a color wheel).
Cross Hatch – Parallel lines marked on the quilt to help hand stitching. The use of straight lines in a grid pattern – diamonds, squares, or rectangles are results of cross hatching.
Dimensional Appliqué – A raised area of the quilt in a design or pattern. Can be stuffed, or not.
Echo Quilting – A style of quilting that has lines of quilting repeating around the edge of a piece or design.
“Fat Quarter” – A yard and a half of fabric cut in half.
Foundation Blocks – Quilt blocks made up of any number of small pieces of fabric. Finished blocks are then joined to create a patchwork face.
Frames – Quilt frames can be small circular hoops for hand sewing, or large rectangular frames for holding bigger quilts.
Grain – Pertaining to raw fabric pieces. This is the line of fiber running perpendicular to the side selvedge.
Hawaiian Appliqué – A popular technique for applying very detailed design pieces onto quilt fabric.
Hoops – Large quilt frames used to hold the quilt for hand or machine stitching.
Lap Quilting – As imagined, quilting squares as complete pieces first (on your lap), and then joining the pieces when they are all made.
Lattice Strips – The quilt strips bordering blocks of a quilt.
Loft – The spare between face and backing fabrics. A quilt with a high loft would be a warmer, thicker quilt.
Meandering or Stippling Style – The style of filling in areas of your quilt with stitch, but none of the stitching touching.
Marking – The act of tracing by freehand to indicate quilt stitch lines. Tailor’s chalk is often used. Some
quilter’s use white soap on dark colored fabrics.
Miters – A method or technique used to measure diagonal and/or angled shapes.
Motif Stitching – This technique provides a pre-defined pattern on plain or patch work quilting. Motif stitching is most often used to incorporate names, hearts, animals, flowers, or abstract patterns as a second layer of interest.
Muslin – Used mainly for hand-stitched quilts. Muslin is a very thin and plain cotton fabric.
No Knots – A method of quilting which does not allow for shown thread knots. To perform this method you’ll need to pull the threaded knot through to the batting layer to hide it. Before finishing the quilt or quilt block, you also need to untie that knot within the centre batting. As with a starter knot, wrap the cotton a couple of times round the needle, check your last stitch hole, and pop the needle back in, and pull it through so that the knot stops in the batting, then cut the thread close to the fabric.
Off Hand – Your ‘off hand’ is usually your left hand (if you are right handed). The ‘idle’ hand used for guiding the needle underneath the quilt to the face of the quilt again for the next pass.
Outline Stitching – A stitching method intended to provide an outline by stitching about ¼ away from the seam. By doing this, the quilt is strengthened, as you get, in effect, a double line of stitching.
Paper Piecing – using paper to attach pieces within a block. Paper is usually numbered or lettered and the pieces are matched, then stitched to the paper, and finally to the adjoining pieces.
Piecing – The act of stitching pieces of fabric together – used mainly in patchwork quilting.
Quilting Thread – A single strand of durable and strong cotton. Quilting thread is often glazed to help it pass through the layers of material and batting with ease.
Rocking – A stitching method that accommodates 4-5 stitches in one pass.
Sashing – The fabric strips that separate the blocks of your quilt.
Satin Stitch – A stitch style, side by side.
Selvedge – The edges of the fabric that have a woven finished edge.
Seminole Quilting – The process of creating large pieces of fabric by joining, that will then be cut and used with repeating shapes.
“Sewing in the Ditch” – Stitching very close to a seam to make the stitches barely visible.
Sharps – Fine needles we use to join pieces and stitch appliqué.
Stencil – A pre-made shape or pattern used for transferring designs and motifs.
Template – A created shape for cutting pieces. Can be made of plastic, paper, sandpaper or specialized quilt template material.
Check out the current deals on quilt supplies:
Current Cheap Quilting Supplies
 | US $4.25 (0 Bid) End Date: Friday Nov-20-2009 19:17:36 PST Bid now | Add to watch list |
 | US $4.25 (0 Bid) End Date: Friday Nov-20-2009 19:18:01 PST Bid now | Add to watch list |
 | US $1.49 (1 Bid) End Date: Friday Nov-20-2009 19:18:45 PST Bid now | Add to watch list |
 | US $6.49 (0 Bid) End Date: Friday Nov-20-2009 19:19:17 PST Bid now | Add to watch list |
 | US $1.49 (1 Bid) End Date: Friday Nov-20-2009 19:19:34 PST Bid now | Add to watch list |
 | US $1.49 (1 Bid) End Date: Friday Nov-20-2009 19:19:59 PST Bid now | Add to watch list |
 | US $2.49 (0 Bid) End Date: Friday Nov-20-2009 19:20:24 PST Bid now | Add to watch list |
 | US $8.50 (0 Bid) End Date: Friday Nov-20-2009 19:26:15 PST Bid now | Add to watch list |
Types of Quilts
Album Quilts – Personalized quilts that use a mix of blocks that are pertinent to the maker, the recipient, or a specific event. Often given as gifts for special
occasions.
Amish Quilts – Very simplistic styling, but always functional.
Crazy Quilt – A finished quilt using irregular fabric pieces that are then stitched to the foundation fabric and may or may not be decorated after.
“Cat’s Ears” – A block style quilt. Also known as Prairie Points.
Charm Quilts – A finished quilt that has only one shape, used repeatedly, but never using the same fabric more than once.
Friendship Quilt – This quilt is made to be given to friends or family. These quilts often have messages or are the result of a fabric swap between friends.
Medallion Quilt – A quilt with a central design from which the rest of the design flows outwards.
Millennium Quilt – Also known as Y2K quilts, created to commemorate the passing of the year 2000.
Sampler – A finished piece that shows a variety of different techniques.
Comments feed
