DK Quilt Guild: A place for quilters to gather, share ideas, projects, and to make the world a better place, one quilt at a time. Join us and share your thoughts, projects, questions, and tips. Quilters here are at many different levels of skill. Beginners and non-quilters are welcome, too!
Fabrics in quilts can be somber, peaceful, playful or dramatic. The quilter makes a concerted choice in their design and theme of the quilt.
There are several places that quilters purchase their fabric. High end small quilt shops, quilt shows, and big all purpose fabric stores. The smaller quilt shops tend to offer very good quality cotton fabric. More personal customer services and many quilting classes are available. The quilt shows have vendors/merchants from all over the country and offer fabrics that may not be in your area. All purpose fabric stores are huge with lessor quality cotton fabric, but their fabric can be more affordable. Fabric designs come in solids, florals, paisley, geometrical, batiks, plaids, dots, stripes, novelty, 1930s retro fabric, and make the creative process a lot of fun.
I live in the San Francisco East Bay; which is a Mecca for quilters. There are several very good small quilt shops. The big fabric store is JoAnn Fabric and Craft Store.
In Between Stitches~Livermore, CA
A good quilt store has a wide variety of fabric, notions, supplies, and classes. Fabric can be purchased by the yard on the bolt or precut fabric. Precut fabric can be by the size of the square ie: layercake, charm packs, jellyroll, fat quarters, fat eights or quilt kits. It seems like a different language to learn the terms. A Layer Cake is 42 square pieces of fabric 10"x10", Charm Pack 42 square pieces 5"x5", Jellyroll 40 strips of fabric 2.5"x45". A Fat Quarter is a quarter of a yard, Fat Eights is an eight of a yard. The quilt kit is a pre-measured amount of fabric to complete a quilt.
In the above photo: fabric bolts, layercake, charm packs & jelly roll.
Some quilters wash their fabric prior to sewing; other quilters will wash after the quilt is completed. It's a personal preference.
Contra Costa County Quilt Guild Show
In the following photos are 5 Sampler Quilts from Alex Anderson's Start Quilting Book.
http://www.powells.com/...
These quilts are basically the same design using different fabrics. Most of the quilts were pinned ready for quilting and not completed. It's amazing how each quilt looks so different from the others because of the fabric choices.
This sampler was designed & quilted by Dee Christopher of In Between Stitches Quilt Shop
This blue sampler quilt was designed by Marsha.
This brown sampler quilt was designed by Robin
This green sampler quilt was designed by Candace
This pink sampler quilt was designed by Pam (me)
How do you choose your fabric? Do you have a set pattern? Or do you enter the shop and decide there?
If you're in the San Francisco East Bay and are interested in finding good quilting stores. All are small businesses and are very customer oriented.
Cotton Patch~ Lafayette, CA
http://www.quiltusa.com/
In Between Stitches~ Livermore, CA
http://www.inbetweenstitches.com/...
New Pieces Quilt Store~ Berkeley
http://www.newpieces.com/...
StoneMountain & Daughter Fabrics~ Berkeley, CA
http://www.stonemountainfabric.com
Thimble Creek~Concord, CA
http://www.thimblecreek.com/
Wooden Gate~Danville, CA
http://www.woodengatequilts.com/