Fabric – we all love it and thankfully there are so many ranges and design houses there is always enough to please everyone. Whether you are a person that buys by the metre, the yard or fat quarter there really is oodles of choice. And on top of that there are pre-cuts a plenty – jelly rolls, charm packs, layer cakes and bundles and plenty patterns out there to make use of every single scrap.
I’ve said it before – I’m a fabric addict. I’m not ashamed of it. I truly love it all. I have a stash bigger than is reasonable and yet I can’t stop buying. Show me a pretty range and I’m itching to have it. Rarely do I have a plan in mind when buying, I just get drawn in and find it impossible to resist.
And yet I have more quilts than I know what to do with. I have several planned in my head and even more patterns saved on social media sites like Pinterest and Instagram. But the problem is I’m time poor. I spend my days running round after my two children, aged 6 and 3, and especially in the summer holidays I have little, if any, time to sew.
Today I grabbed some time, and I want to share with you my biggest fabric love of all. I love an extra wide. Those hidden super-sized fabrics are super special to me and today I got to play with some.
My daughter has recently had a revamp of her bedroom and needed some new sheets. I could easily have gone to a department store or even the supermarket and got a single duvet cover and pillowcase for less than £20 but almost everything out there for girls is drenched in pink. Now thats great if you like pink but my daughter has never been a girly girl. She likes blue and green and mud pies and dinosaurs and even the occasional unicorn. And if I can’t buy what she wants then I guess I’ll just have to make it. I got my hands on some Moda Grunge hits the Spot in Aqua Green in the extra wide (108”). A couple of metres and a little sewing and hey presto, we have a new bed set and she is absolutely thrilled.
Extra wide fabrics can be hard to spot but are often excellent value and useable for so much more than a quilt back. There is a wide variety available even if they aren’t always well advertised, a little searching really is worth while.
If you think, on average, a metre of good quality quilting cotton is around £12-£15 currently. A single metre of extra wide may be £18-£22 but when you consider you are getting 1.6m more in width, more than double, then the extra cost is more that worth it. A charm pack at around £11 is only really half metre of fabric so while convenient they really have a premium price tag. A jelly roll or layer cake both contain about 2.75m of fabric and cost around £30 for a similar cm2 to a single metre of extra wide.
I’ve made bedding for my two since they were born and have never failed to find an extra wide fabric they like. I’ve used them for dresses, shirts and shorts, for zip up pouches and fabric baskets, for cushions and pillows, for regular patchwork and of course as quilt backs. There is nothing they can’t do. So next time you visit a fabric shop just ask what extra wides they have – you may be surprised.
So tell me if you are a lover of pre-cuts or strictly a fat quarter kind of fabric shopper. Which stores have the cuts or variety you love the most? Let me know in the comments below. And you can keep up to date with my sewing adventures over on Instagram.
I’m a strictly fat quarter gal
Can’t go wrong with an FQ – just so versatile!