How I cut my Fat Eights of Fabric!

I have already done a tutorial on how I like to cut my brick charm squares (5"x10"), now I want to show you how I like to cut my Fat Eights also.

1 yard or 1 metre of fabric will yield 8 Fat Eights.

First you need a yard of fabric, or if purchasing through a non-USA fabric store then get a meter of fabric.  A meter of fabric is about 3" more (or 8cm), I will leave it up to you if you trim the 3" off and keep for yourself or if you want to spread the joy of  a larger piece, then I know I will be happy as I am sure other swappers will too!

• Do Not Pre-Wash
• Do Iron
• Trim the selvage on both sides

I trim my selvage by folding the fabric in half right sides facing, so your fabric looks like a 1/2 yard, make the edges/selvages even, now you might see your top look like this.

See the selvage edge is straight and even, but the cut sides of the fabric are not, this uneven cutting will be different with each piece of fabric, it depends on how the shop cuts it, or even the person of the day, so this top side is a little smaller than the bottom portion of fabric, I took my ruler to make sure that it at least measured 18".

measuring the short cut top down to the folded edge.

Okay we are alright, this shortened cut side is still at 18.5" so let's trim that selvage off.

This one was wonky cut on the sides and in the middle, but measured over 18"

Make sure to cut any little holes off, like the above picture, or cut all of the white off if the print doesn't start right away like the below picture.

• Now with both sides of the selvage off, let's fold the fabric in half again, so fold "selvage" to "selvage" (your recently cutted (new word) edges together).

This would be the size of a FQ (Fat Quarter) but since we are making F8ths (Fat Eights) we will take the number (above picture) of 21.25" and divide that by 2, this is the measurement we will be cutting the Fat Eights, unfold the fold you just made.

• Cut that fabric at 10 5/8, making 3 cuts.  

Then you unfold (the cut fabric should be somewhere around 10-11" x 36") and measure the length, mine were all more than 36", one was 38" so I divided that in half and cut the crossword fabric at 19".

• Measure and cut the "long" yard side, stacking all 4 strips on top of each other to make 1 cut and creating 8 Fat Eight pieces.

All 4 10.5" rows cut and stacked, now I measure and cut it in the middle once, creating 8 pieces.

 The crosswords ended up being cut at 10.5"x 19" and the Winterfall light blue words was cut at 10 5/8" x 18.5".  Neither of my fabrics came out to 11" but they are bigger than 18".  You see shops know that they cut wonky and so they normally give you .5 - 1" in extra fabric, I just left that on and you can square it up if you want to, otherwise, every piece ended up being about the same size.

Will you join me for the 8² Text Fabric Swap, Read the Rules and sign up here.

8² Fabric Clarifications

A couple of questions have come up about the new Fabric swap 8² - What is 8²-  First we will be swapping 8 Fat Eights,   If you cut them your self you will need to send in all 8 pieces and you will get back 1 of your pieces and 7 others.  I have written a tutorial on how I like to cut my F8ths. 
This is where the squared part comes in,

1. You send in an additional 2 Fat eighths (different from the 8 pieces above and they can be different from each other as well), or 
2. 8 brick charms, no more than 2 charms of the same fabric.

So let's say you have 2 FQ's of text prints, you can just cut those in half and send them in, I will swap them with 2 different ones.   Don't have enough text fabric, send in 8 brick sized charms, no more than 2 charms of the same print, Please send in fabric that you yourself would like to receive, maybe more text fabric, low volume, or small prints, NO big prints, please.  You will get 8 different brick charms than what you sent in.

Why? You ask, am I doing it that way, so glad you asked, this is the perfect amount to keep the weight under 200 grams.  The shipping cost of 200 grams is 3.30euro, so only about $5.  So even if you are American or any other International person interested in the swap, it won't cost you any more than it would if it was an American swap.  I'll PayPal you for the shipping.

The Fabric Shops:
As an added bonus, I have arranged for us to get discounts to 2 on-line shops. I will send you the discount code once you have signed up so you can get to shopping. If you still prefer to order only 1 yard of fabric, then we can pool our orders together and I will have it all sent to my house, cut it here and then send your package to you.The shops:

Pink Castle Fabrics is offering a 10% discount: they are right now running their Golden Ticket deal, www.pinkcastleblog.com/2014/06/goldenticket.html
text fabrics can be found here, www.pinkcastlefabrics.com/collections/common-searches-text

Lark Cottons is offering a 15% discount for this swap: they have a gorgeous array of text and low volume prints www.larkcottons.com/themes/text
they have a discounted International Shipping at $21.50, that is at least $3.00 cheaper than other shops.

Just some extra options for you, you of course can purchase quality quilting cotton from whatever store you desire, and if you already have some in your stash, even better!

Sign up by using this form
and then head over to flickr to say you are going to join the Text Swap Round.

FQS Haul Part 2

Okay last week I talked about my red and aqua infatuation, plus a whole lot of American Made Brand Solids, all purchased at the Fat Quarter Shop.  This week, let's talk about Aurifil Love! Oh Boy, you see I was a very, very lucky winner of this beautiful box of threads.  Now I was unsure of if I won the small 10 spool box or the huge 12 spool box from the FQS, but I didn't care, cause it was awesome no matter what the size, see size doesn't count ;)
But I was getting a tad worried, they had mailed it on May 30th and I had gotten my 2 purchased in mid June packages, but still no sign of the threads.  Where were they, I was freaking out, just a very small bit, but they came this Tuesday and the mailman called me, cause I kind of harassed him last Thursday and Friday when the other packages came but the threads didn't.

 Are you ready to open it?  Sneaky peeky, they pack it so well, I just love the FQS stickers.

 It's the BIG Box of 12 50wt. spools of Everyday Color, by Me and My Sister!

The box is really nice, and it contained my favorite variegated thread.

Do you remember this picture...

See I was getting so low on it and I was like do I really want to use this precious thread on a charity quilt.  Karma, I got a BIG spool of it now!

They had this peachy pink color next to the variegated 4660 Pink, but to tell you the truth I think this color looks even better with this variegated color.

Variegated 4668 Pinks and 2425 larger spool peachy pink color.  I am giving these as a gift to a good friend.

2120 Bright Yellow, 4658 Bright Yellow and Orange Variegated, 1133 Bright Orange.

2520 Darker violet, and 2510 light violet

5017 Light neonish greeen, 6737 a even brighter version (this is a newer thread)

5005 light turquoise blue, 4663 Variegated (matches great with these 2 colors) , 6738 darker blue,

My favorite new color, matches so well with my recent thread collection.  I just am loving this color now.

I forgot to mention the jelly roll that I also got during the shipping sale, and it was one of their daily deals so I got it for $13. 

I have seen this collection in so many pretty quilts, so it was high time that I picked some up.

ooopps, sidewise, Joel Dewberry, Notting Hill.

My favorite prints are these half circular ones.
I also got a few tools and notions.

Linking up to Sunday Stash.