I have one my husband bought me when I was stash building....great idea to use it for a backing....it's been languishing in the pile for some time. I think it was the "cheater" bit that has put me off using it.

I've used some really cute 'smarties (I don't call them 'cheaters') to make quick baby quilts. I'm glad I did that for the first of my good friend's 5 children to produce a grandchild, because they've now produced 8! Let me off the hook to produce a 'real' quilt every time! So I was a 'smartie' the first time. Whenever I see good 'smartie's on sale that would make nice baby quilts, I buy a bunch! Never run out of the need to make baby quilts! People keep having 'em, and I only make 'from scratch' baby quilts for very special people. Like the Twin Baby quilts that took me all winter - but that's another story - - -

I was at my county fair on Monday and saw what I thought was a Dear Jane quilt. As all the quilts were displayed a good 5 feet away and all were folded so you could only see maybe a1/4 of the quilt, you couldn't inspect it closely. Lucky for me there was a lady there working and I asked about it. When she told me it was a pre-printed fabric (aka cheater, never heard that term before) I was shocked. The quilting work on it was truly impressive and from 5 ft away you certainly couldn't tell!

Also I think that is a great idea to use preprinted blocks (I think I like that term better then cheater) for both machine and hand quilting practice.

MarshallDryGoods has lots of preprinted baby quilt panels and woodland scenes, etc. They have various grades of fabric, and what I have gotten both bolts and panels have been very good quality. Some have been exceptional, like their blendeds and batiks. They have seconds and less on tables for $1 a yard, like a BIG rummage sale! :lol:

I love Cheater cloths! I always buy them when I see patterns I like to make a super quick quilt, usually for a charity.

I make sure I buy two yards, then I get at least two coordinating fabrics and use those for borders. I can whip up a twin sized or over sized lap quilt in no time.

I actually made one this week. Walmart had a gorgeous autumn jewel toned cheater cloth with metallic highlights, in a series of squares and rectangles, and there were two coordinates! I bought six yards of the cheater cloth, and 2 1/2 of the coordinates. I cut the cheater into two yard lenghts, added three 3' borders and was done in an hour and it is really beautiful. I quilted it at my LQS on an HQ16, which took about two hours. A stunning three hour quilt works for me! The cost to make this quilt was about $30 total, including batting and backing (great sales at Joanns) It will be raffled off this week at a cancer benefit.

One thing to be very careful of when using cheater cloths. The way the fabric is put on the machine that actually prints it, can make the grain of the fabric uneven, and then the printing of the fabric becomes slanted. This is where rippng to find the grain can be important to make sure the design is straight. If you discover it is causing the print to go off a bit, it might be best to make blocks and use sashing between them to avoid using the area of misprint. Sometimes you can work the fabric to make it 'look' straighter, but not always.

Thanks for all the links everyone provided. Looks like I'll be adding quite a few to my stash.

Diane

Some people use preprinted panels for charity quilts in our Guild. We started calling them "User Friendly".

more than likley it's a panel and most quilt shops have them depending on the collections they carry. Hope this helps

I alway's called them pre-printed quilt panels. Great for practicing on or giving kids who are rough on things.

These "cheater quilt" panels are most likely what is being used for the "made in China" quilts. That's how they can make them so cheaply.

Some maybe, but on some you can see the seams - and they're not especially well pieced by those slave labor prisoners.