Cheater quilt fabric is basically a fun way to make a quilt without having to do all of the piecing. The name “cheater quilt” is a little off-putting, but you shouldn’t look at this as cheating on anything for the reasons I’m going to mention below!
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Examples of cheater quilt fabric.
These are some of the cheater quilt designs that I’ve made for sewing and dollhouses (by scaling the design down.)
This one is the traditional “Orange Peel” quilt pattern, and has pastel designs that are reminiscent of vintage feed sack fabrics.
This is a pink design that has a strip piecing pattern.
You would basically buy the yardage to make the size quilt that you want, stitch a straight seam to connect the pre-printed panel together, then make the quilt as usual.
These photos are from Spoonflower, where you can get things that are pre-made, like the duvet covers in the photos, or the fabric to make them yourself.
They also offer a wider cotton sateen fabric that’s 116″ wide instead of the usual 42″. That would mean that you can basically make a whole-cloth quilt without having to seam the regular-width yardage together.
You can see the cheater quilt fabric collection that I’ve been putting together here, and I’m adding new designs all the time.
For an article with some indie designer fabric stores online, click here.
This cheater quilt was a gift to Mary of Lil Fox Designs. Her mother made it using a cheater quilt fabric and quilted it using a heart motif.
This little dollhouse quilt is one of the scaled-down patterns that I made, and it’s a good example of why cheater quilt fabric is good for miniatures. If I had to sew the tiny pieces together to make a teeny quilt I would lose my mind. (See how to make one yourself here.)
It’s a lot easier to use a mini fabric then stitch it like a full-sized quilt, and it looks good in the dollhouse.
Find the mini cheater quilt fabric in 1:12 dollhouse scale and 1:6 dollhouse scale on Spoonflower.
Here are some reasons why cheater quilts aren’t really “cheating.”
Whole cloth quilts do exist.
Whole cloth quilts, where someone does quilting on a full piece of fabric that hasn’t been pieced together with a patchwork design, have been around for centuries.
Doing the quilting stitches on a fabric that has a printed design is basically making a whole-cloth quilt, so you’re not doing anything other than adding a pattern to it.
People like to make different things.
When you make a quilt with patchwork piecing, you cut out all of the shapes, piece them together to make the pattern, then you quilt the whole thing together.
Some people love the piecing part of the process and some people don’t (I tend to not enjoy that part.)
Some people love the stitching together part of the process, and other people don’t.
Since there are options for having other people do the quilting for you, some people hire other people who like to do the quilting part to do that for them once they’ve pieced the quilt top together.
If you don’t like the piecing part but you like the quilting part of the process, cheater quilts will let you skip the entire part where you have to do the cutting and piecing.
You’ll be able to stitch them to your heart’s content without having to do the part that you don’t enjoy.
Time-sensitive gifts.
If you want to make a quilt for a gift, but you don’t have a lot of time to do it, cheater quilt fabric is a good option.
People who don’t make quilts themselves probably won’t even be able to notice a difference, if we’re being honest, because people don’t know how much time goes into a handmade quilt.
They also don’t know the difference between a quilt and a blanket, so cheater quilt fabric will take a lot of work off your plate for people who will enjoy the gift, but who don’t always understand the work that went into it.
Gifts for people you’re not really close to (or who don’t appreciate the work.)
The last point was the time-sensitive one, but there could also be times when you COULD do a full-on hand-pieced and hand-stitched quilt for a gift, but you don’t want to.
This could be a gift for family members who you’re not really close to, but you’ve kind of made it a tradition to give quilts for special events, so everyone expects that you’ll make one..
If you’re expected to show up with a quilt but your motivation isn’t really all there for whatever reason, a cheater quilt is a great option to cut down on your work time.
And before you leave comments about how that’s a terrible thing to say, let’s be honest as far as family gift-giving goes. It can get very political, and family grievances have started over smaller things, so sometimes it’s just better to make a cheater quilt and move on with your life.
Another reason that falls in this category are the people who don’t appreciate the work that you put into the gift.
If that’s the case and you know it’s the case, but you also know that if you don’t make a quilt there will be complaining about it, just reduce the amount of work for yourself and do a machine-quilted lap quilt using cheater fabric.
Nobody will be able to say that you didn’t bring a quilt, and if you machine quilt cheater quilt fabric it will be a lot less work for you, and you won’t resent the lack of appreciation from the ungrateful people.
Or even better, go buy a cheap quilt and cut the tags off and tell them you made it. I’m all for that if you can get away with it.
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Quilts that will be really used and abused.
Let’s move away from the ungrateful people and talk about the people who really love your quilted gifts, so much that they use them to the point where they get ruined eventually.
That’s actually the best, because you know that the person you gave it to really likes it.
However, it can also be good to use cheater fabric for this kind of thing because the whole cloth top is going to be more sturdy over time than a pieced one.
I have quilts that have seams popping in the center of the quilt after being used over time, so you won’t run into that with a cheater quilt that’s a single panel.
If you know that the person you’re going to give the quilt to is really going to use it, a cheater quilt fabric might be a good choice.
Practice for stitching beginners.
Another reason cheater quilt fabric is a good thing is that it’s a great way to learn to do machine quilting without ruining your hand-pieced quilt tops!
I wrote an article about machine quilting tips for beginners (read it here) and I’m okay at it after some practice, but “okay” is relative.
I pieced this quilt using fabric that I designed myself (see the collection here) and I didn’t want to ruin it with terrible stitching. I ended up doing the colorful patchwork areas with the machine, but I hand-stitched the solid sections because my machine stitching skill were still lacking.
I think that if I didn’t have so much time invested in the piecing of the quilt top, it wouldn’t have been as painful to make mistakes while I was practicing the machine stitching.
If you’re a teenager or an adult who’s learning to machine quilt, using a cheater quilt fabric will give you a sense of accomplishment even if you didn’t do the piecing.
A cheater quilt will take that pressure off of you and you can make mistakes without ripping your hair (and the stitches) out.
Speed to finish a project.
This has been mentioned before, but it’s worth saying it again. With a cheater quilt top, you can finish a full-sized quilt in a heck of a lot less time than it takes to do patchwork piecing before you start stitching.
You can also use cheater quilt fabric to make other things like tote bags, throw pillows, makeup bags, etc. etc. It’s a fast way to add a touch of patchwork into your craft projects without having to do the piecing yourself. (Or buy them premade on Zazzle!)
It’s a lot faster than quilting the fabric first, then making that pieced fabric into a project, whether it’s a quilt or another type of product.
For an article about gifts for quilters, click here.
Any creativity is better than no creativity.
My last reason why you shouldn’t feel “cheaty” about using a cheater quilt fabric for your projects, is that anything that gets you making something and using your creativity is a good thing.
If you like the idea of quilting but it’s seemed too overwhelming to you, start with a cheater quilt fabric.
Try it out, practice the stitching part, and you’ll end up with the satisfaction of having made something yourself.
If more people tried creating things themselves there would be more appreciation of the work that goes into it, and people would benefit from using their brains in a creative way.
Basically, anything that gets more people making things that are creative in some way is good. People might not be as cranky if they had a creative hobby, and if cheater quilt fabric can contribute to that I’m all for it!