Crafty_Woodmouse

Hi all,

Apologies if this has been asked before, but I ran a quick forum search and couldn't see anything. If a FQ is about 20 inches long (so says Google), and 20 inches is just over 0.5 metres, does that really make 5 FQ 2.5m of yardage? It feels like an awful lot! I think I might have to scale back my fabric plans.

Thanks in advance.

Woodmouse

Barb in Louisiana

FYI.... 1 yard is 36 inches. A fat quarter will be 18 inches of length of fabric and 20~22 inches wide which is half of the width. I don't know who made that statement about 5 FQ being 2.5 m, but it is not accurate. In the States, it takes 4 FQ to make a yard, which when put back together will be a 36" length of fabric. The fabric is assumed to be 42~44 inches wide. A meter is about 39.7 inches. The most 5 FQ could be is slightly less than 1.25 meters. Perhaps they didn't type the 1 and just typed the 25 as the measurement.

Got to thinking about it again....If you take the FQ's and lay them end to end, you will have 5 x 18 inches which will be 90 inches long which when divided by 39.7 inches in a meter = 2.27 linear length of the FQ material. It's still not 2.5, but that may be how they came up with that weird measurement.

sewingpup

Actually, a fat quarter is first a half yard cut off the bolt (18 inches), then cut in half (usually on the fold) and ends up about 20 inches wide assuming the fabric is 40 inches wide. Now usually the salvage edges are not removed so there is a selvage edge on one side making it about 21 inches wide, but 1 inch is not usable because it is the selvage. So, most fat quarters are 18 X 20-21 And yep if you put four of them together you would get one yard as it comes off the bolt. Hope that helps.

Crafty_Woodmouse

Thank you so much for your help. I should have thought about finding out how much a yard was! Now I know that I need 1.25 yards in metres, which is just over 1, so if I get 1.5 metres I'll be fine.

Thanks again

bearisgray

1yard ( 36 inches) = 0.9144 meter = 91.44 centimeters

1 meter (39.37 inches ) = 1.094 yards = 100 centimeters

One inch = 2.54 centimeters

100 centimeters = 1 meter

Think : 100 cents = one dollar ( US) money

bearisgray

Do places that sell fabric by the meter - do they have equivalents for " layer cakes", fat quarters, etc.?

rryder

Five fat quarters is the equivalent to 5/4 yards of fabric- so 1 and 1/4 yards of fabric are in 5 fat quarters.

Rob

Gemm

Bearisgray - I'm pretty sure our FQs, layer cakes, charm squares, etc. are all the standard imperial measurements. It's only when you're buying off the bolt that they work in metric.

Iceblossom

As already stated a "fat" quarter is a one yard piece of fabric, essentially folded in half each direction. A standard quarter yard is 9" (1/4th of 36) and Width of Fabric (WoF). The WoF is not always stated and quilting fabric has no standard right now, and despite me complaining for the last 20 years or so, is not accurately reflected on bolts -- width is very rarely stated but it is always known during the printing process... machines have to be calibrated and all that.

Back around Y2K, after growing up with the "standard" quilting fabric being 44/45" wide (the 36" was pretty much gone by/during the 60s), I did a lot of fabric swapping. We were the first to make 10" squares, before commercial "cake" cuts. Especially with huge 1" unprinted selvedges, the fabric was often barely 40" usable across despite then still being marked as 44/45 and now rarely noted and rarely correct when noted.

So one direction should always be 18", the other dimension varies from 20-22" and it should be a recognizable rectangle in shape. As does the quality of the cut (whether it is straight or not) and the grain of the fabric and just hope you don't need to match motifs in the fabric.

Last year I had fabric and while it was technically as wide as claimed (which was wider than I needed), it also included two large unusable selvedges and I was unable to cut my setting squares at 4 across. In addition to being narrow, it had a directional print with fairly large motifs and it was "seasonal" that is, a limited print run. Mostly what I found in stock in retail stores were FQs by the time I found out my problem. But keep in mind, the yardage itself was narrow, although a FQ may be 18x20-22, in this case it was even less and I could only get one square per FQ and not two. By the time you added up shipping, I found a private seller with two yards that was cheaper that 4 FQs.

I admit to being cheap, I classify full priced FQs in general as not being a thrifty way to buy. On the other hand, for a wide variety of fabrics easily stored, they are awesome.

GingerK

In Canada, a fat quarter is slightly larger than in the US. It is cut in the same way--1/2 meter off the bolt and then cut along the fold. Sooo...a fat quarter to us, is about 20 inches by 20-22 inches, depending on the width of the fabric.