The maker's glossary

Every craft has its dialect. Here's quilting's — short, honest definitions with zero gatekeeping, from basting to WOF.

Basting

Temporarily holding the quilt sandwich (top, batting, backing) together before quilting — with pins, spray, or long stitches.

Batting

The insulating middle layer of a quilt. Cotton, polyester, wool, or blends — each drapes and lofts differently.

Bias

The 45° diagonal of woven fabric. Stretchy — great for curved binding, risky for un-stabilized seams.

Binding

The fabric strip that wraps and finishes the raw edges of a quilt. Usually cut 2.25–2.5" wide.

Charm pack

A bundle of 5" × 5" precut squares, typically 40–42 coordinated prints from one collection.

EPP (English Paper Piecing)

Hand-piecing technique where fabric is wrapped around paper templates — hexies are the classic.

Fat quarter

A quarter yard cut 18" × 22" instead of the skinny 9" × 44" strip. More usable real estate for patchwork.

Feed dogs

The toothed metal strips under the presser foot that pull fabric through the machine. Dropped for free-motion quilting.

Fussy cutting

Cutting a piece to feature a specific motif of the print — worth the fabric waste, every time.

HST (Half-square triangle)

A square made of two right triangles — the most-used unit in quilting after the plain square.

Jelly roll

A precut bundle of 2.5" × WOF strips, usually 40 per roll.

Loft

The thickness and puffiness of batting. Low loft = flat and modern, high loft = cozy and puffy.

Longarm quilting

Quilting the sandwich on a dedicated frame machine with a long throat — often offered as a service by longarm quilters.

Notions

The small tools and supplies of sewing: pins, clips, needles, seam rippers, marking tools, measuring tape.

Precuts

Factory-cut coordinated fabric bundles — charm packs, jelly rolls, layer cakes, fat quarter bundles.

Sashing

Strips of fabric separating quilt blocks — gives blocks room to breathe and grows the quilt fast.

Seam allowance

The distance between stitch line and raw edge. Quilting standard: a scant ¼".

Selvage

The tightly woven, often printed edge of yardage. Trim it off — it shrinks and pulls differently.

Stash

Your personal fabric collection. It is never finished, and that's fine.

UFO

UnFinished Object. Every maker has a drawer of them. No judgment here.

Walking foot

A presser foot that feeds top and bottom layers evenly — essential for straight-line quilting and binding.

WOF (Width of fabric)

Selvage-to-selvage width of yardage, nominally 42–44", realistically 40–42" usable.