These two pictures are the fat quarters that I have been collecting to make a Yellow Brick Road quilt for my bed. I wanted a quilt that said, “Spring”, so I have been saving florals and blenders for a few months now. I have machine quilted several quilts from this pattern for customers; I will now have one for myself.

For those who are unfamiliar with quilting language; a fat quarter is a yard of fabric which has been cut into 4 pieces, first down the fold and then in half width wise. Most quilting cottons are sold on the bolt with a single fold down the middle. When opened, the fabric is 44″ wide. If you were to ask the shop to cut a quarter yard of fabric, they would cut the piece 9″ wide. You would end up with a piece of fabric 9″ x 44″. Another way to get a quarter yard of fabric is to cut a half yard (or 18″ x 44″) and then subcut down down the fold to end up with two pieces of fabric 18″ x 22″ otherwise known as a fat quarter–the same amout of fabric, just a different shape.

So, in summary, a fat quarter is a quarter yard of fabric cut on the fold to produce a wider yield–approximately 18″ x 22″.

The following is a useful reference for what you can cut from a fat quarter.

99 – 2″ squares
50 – 2 1/2″ squares
42 – 3″ squares
30 – 3 1/2″ squares
20 – 4″ squares
16 – 4 1/2″ squares
12 – 5″ squares
12 – 5 1/2″ squares
9 – 6″ squares
6 – 6 1/2″ squares

In Canada we use the Metric System and fabric is sold by the meter. Because almost all quilting patterns are written for imperial measurements (inches and yards), we must convert from yards to meters when purchasing our fabric.

Some useful conversions are:

1 yard = .91440 meters

1 meter = 1.09360 yards

1 yard = 36 inches

1 meter = 39.37 inches