Silly question from a beginner quilter

[silkenladder]

I have just started my first ever quilt, following this pattern.

Each block is made up using four fabrics: a neutral solid, a contrasting solid and two prints. The author suggests using the same neutral solid fabric in all blocks to give the impression of sashing, so I have bought 4 yards of that fabric (and a yard each of everything else).

The cutting instructions are based on fat quarters, but I've started cutting one of the other solid fabrics and reckon I can save a bit of fabric (and time) by cutting strips off the whole yard, rather than dividing it into quarters first.

My question is, what do I do with the 4-yard bolt of fabric? Do I cut it into yards with scissors first, or is there some way of accurately cutting pieces from a bigger piece of fabric?

TIA

A rotary cutter is the way to go. I've got to dash, but I'll look for some links later (if some other kind people haven't already done it).

Thanks. I have a rotary cutter, but I'm still not sure how to deal with the big piece of fabric. I watched a tutorial by Leah Day showing how to get the grain of the fabric straight before cutting, but I don't see how it would work with a longer piece of fabric. Is that just being needlessly perfectionist?

You could rip the fabric. It is surprisingly accurate and very quick. Just measure out the metre/yard, make a small cut about 3 or 4 cm long in the top of the fabric, right angles to the selvedge and then just rip the rest. You will of course get a rough edge but it the fabric will have to be neatened up along the edge when you level it up to cut the first strip anyway so that is easily dealt with. You could rip it into FQ pretty quickly too or even half yards. I ripped up 4 metres of fabric a few weeks ago into 24 FQ very quickly and it required very little measuring.

Failing that, the rotary cutter should go through about 8 layers of fabric so you could just cut/rip it into yards and fold it to a more manageable size. Do make sure that all the fabric is lying flat though as it will make your strips wonky if you have any kinks in it.

Nice pattern by the way. I do like those kind of squares.

I tend to iron about what I think I will need plus a bit more. Then fold selvedge to selvedge, then bottom to top (and repeat if I can) before cutting with a rotary cutter. i have never worried about getting the grain perfect (other than getting my lines to match up on the ruler when rotary cutting)

My ruler manages half the width of the fabric so I fold selvedge to selvedge. If there's a lot of fabric then I would try to divide it into more manageable sections, so as an example if I had a 4m length of fabric and needed 20cm strips I might first cut a metre and then sub-divide it. Then I could cut the 20cm strips into whatever size I needed.

There are some youtube videos here:

Thanks for your answers.

I will have to work out if I can do what GetOutMyPub suggests and cut off the amount I need. Otherwise I'll just have to cut/rip yard lengths to make it manageable.

I've never worried about getting grain perfect; just take care when you sew not to stretch the fabric, and once it's bound and quilting you won't be able to tell. Hth x

I did a queen sized HSQ quilt which used about 6m of plain fabric and I just used a quilting ruler (they're big bits of plastic with grids printed on them) - started at one end of the fabric and worked my way across and up. Then I squared them up properly/exactly again after I'd cut them.

Thanks, Popcorn, that makes me feel better. It's hard to know as a beginner how exact one needs to be, especially since my sewing won't be very accurate at the start.

Did I understand right, you cut slightly bigger than you needed and then squared them up?

Another question for anyone: if I fold selvedge to selvedge and then fold the centre fold up to the selvedges (so I have four layers), then I can't cut it in one pass with my rotary cutter. Is that normal? Should I just fold once and cut with the long ruler instead? Or does my new cutter blade already need replacing?