the student makes- how to make quilting cheap

If you follow my blog you know that I like quilting. You will also know that I am a student.

Those two things don't tend to go well together. Material is pretty expensive and a quilt uses a lot of it. 

But there are ways to make it cheap or at least cheaper...

1. Be sure of what you are buying. 

Fat quarters look lovely, come in beautiful designs and are pre cut. Win, win? Maybe, but the fact that they are pre-cut into that nice square size means that they are often more expensive. 

Have a careful look before you commit to making a quilt out of fat quarters. Over here fat quarters retail at around £4.00. That would make a metre of fabric £16.00. Have a look around and do your maths, is there a metre of fabric straight off the bolt that could be less? Buying straight off the bolt and asking for a quarter of a metre, or half will often prove cheaper than buying a pre cut. 

When making quilts I will often choose several bolts of fabric and then as a treat throw in a few fat quarters. 

(This isn't a hard and fast rule that fat quarters are more expensive but if you do your maths they tend to be quite pricey. I suggest going into a dedicated fabric shop and looking at what they have on the bolts first.)

2. Pick up fabric as and when you find it. 

In other words make a stash! 

I went to France this summer and whilst looking around one of the lovely markets came across a fabric stall. The fabric was a lot cheaper than the UK so I picked up a few pretty looking pieces. 

I didn't have a project in mind but went with fabrics that I know always appeal to me, neutrals, spots and stripes. 

3. Do the maths! 

More maths I know but if you are keen to save money, working out what size blocks you want to cut out of your fabric is really important. Try and use as much of the fabric you have bought as possible. That often means having to measure each piece and working out how many squares/triangles of a certain size you can get out of it. 

It may seem frugal but you will waste far less if you take time to do the measuring first. It also pays (pun!) to be accurate with your cutting. I am useless at this and it is something I am still learning!

4. Quilt as you go

A quilt is made up of a sandwich of layers. The patchwork quilt top, a layer of batting/wadding and then the backing fabric. 

There are many ways to secure these three layers together. I personally choose the quilt as you go option. 

This means I make my patchwork top in sections. Each bit is about 12 x 12". I then cut a piece of batting slightly bigger than this and sew the two layers together. 

The quilt therefore develops as a series of quilted squares which are then put in order and stitched together. 

A really good tutorial can be found here. 

This saves you money simply because you can use scraps. There is no need to buy a large piece of batting/wadding and cut it to size. You can use what you have as you are only working with a small bit at a time.

5. Think outside the box

For my most recent quilt I had a collection of patterned material that I was keen to use. I knew though that simply using this would not create a big enough quilt.

I therefore decided to pair each coloured square with a neutral one. This required a large amount of plain fabric and to keep costs down I visited a large branch of a supermarket. There I found cheap bed sheets for around £10 in a huge variety of colours. For this quilt I used a double sheet made of beautifully soft brushed cotton.
Sheets provide a huge amount of material for very little cost. I

n this instance I cut up the sheet and used it as squares for the quilt top but in the past have used sheets for the backing fabric too.

Don't think that just because you are making a quilt you have to buy quilting fabric! I have used old curtains before as a backing fabric and cut up old shirts to use as patchwork squares.

Quilting really doesn't have to cost the earth. Build a stash, collect fabric as you go, find cheaper sources of fabric and do the maths!
At the end of the day making something beautiful is worth far more than the supplies it cost to get there.

What do you do to keep crafting cheap?