What is a “cheater quilt”?

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The name “cheater quilt” seems like it would be something bad or negative. Back in the day, I’m sure there were quilt snobs who definitely judged them.

But a cheater quilt is just a piece of fabric that is printed to look like it is pieced fabric. So it looks like it has been made with smaller pieces of fabric, but it is not.

Sometimes fabric like this is sold as yardage and sometimes it is printed in panels. Fabric printing companies like Spoonflower sometimes have the option to choose multiple prints and make your own cheater quilt fabric. In fact, Spoonflower calls its designs made with 6” squares or 9” squares “cheater quilts”. You can use many different fabric designs to make a unique piece.

You can take this fabric and add a batting and backing and finish it just as you would a quite top that you have pieced.

It makes a quick and easy project that doesn’t require as much time and effort a a patchwork quilt. So if you want a last-minute quilt or a gift that you don’t want to invest hundreds of hours in, a printed panel can be a good option.

Cheater quilt fabric is also great for practicing free motion quilting because you have the effect of quilting different sections without having to piece it. You will feel more comfortable practicing and taking chances if you are not worrying about ruining your quilt top that you spent a lot of time making.

Most quilters will know the difference. So if you quilt a printed piece of fabric and try to enter it in a competition and claim that you spent many hours piecing or try to show off your perfect points, then you probably will get called out. Claiming to do work that you didn’t do is cheating.

But using printed fabric in your project isn’t cheating, even if it’s called cheater fabric.

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