Cheater Fabric!

[Margo C.]

Has anybody any experience of using cheater fabric? I have got some of the Windham Brickhouse cheater fabric. It is beautiful, and has an icecream cone type border, but on two sides only. There is a picture of it on our blog:

http://www.cupcakecottons.com

We are now pondering on how best to use the fabric without too much wastage - and also would like to incorporate the lovely border somehow. Any ideas much appreciated!!

Everybody on here is always so good with responses! :lol:

[Dawn S.]

I have done a couple of cheater quilts, and the one problem I did have with them was that they are not always printed squarely on the fabric. When you square up the design, the overall quilt is not square. So, there's a bit of diagonal pulling, steaming, and blocking that may have to be done. A suggestion for the border is, cut the border strip right down the middle (that gives you enough for 4 sides of a square quilt) and float it in the middle of a larger one color border, chosing a color that "frames" the quilt.

Dawn
In beautiful Northwest Montana

[Dawn S.]

I don't know but am I correct in thinking that the borders are on the selvage edges? If so, I would cut it off on one edge and sew it along the top or bottom so it makes an "L" then put something else, or nothing on the other two sides.

[Dawn S.]

Thanks for the tips - yes, the border is on the selvedges - I'll do some more searching with Google, and see if I can find any other ideas! Thank you all x

[Dawn S.]

I love cheater fabrics, especially for making quick baby quilts. Two of the quilts on my profile include cheater fabrics. Isaiah's Quilt has cheater fabrics in the borders of each side. Madison's Paperdoll Quilt uses a cheater fabric that had a paperdoll border only on one selvedge side and paperdoll clothes floating over the rest of the fabric. With both quilts, I cut the borders from the cheater fabrics leaving enough extra for a seam allowance and used the cheater strips in quilt borders or as just a strip in a strip quilt mixed with coordinating fabrics. If you have enough yardage, which I did not, you can use the cheater borders on all four sides. However, I don't think it's necessary for all four sides of a quilt to match.

I hope this makes sense. If not, feel free to contact me for additional information.

Happy quilting!