Quiltler Studio Glossary

This is the vocabulary of the app itself, not of the craft. If you are after batting, bias, fat quarters and WOF, the quilting glossary covers those. What follows is what Quiltler means by a piece, a shape, a block, a fabric and everything that flows from them into your yardage.

The quilt and the design wall

The quilt you are working on and the area you design it on.

Quilt

What you design and save: a title, the design wall and everything on it. My Library lists your quilts under Quilts, and opening one takes you into the designer. A saved quilt is not a project — Projects is the separate tracker for your sewing progress.

Design wall

The area you design on: the quilt top itself, measured in inches. Its width and height are the quilt's size before borders, and they include the room sashing takes. Borders sit outside it, which is why a bordered quilt finishes larger than the design wall.

Finished size

The sewn size, after seams. For a whole quilt it includes every border — what you would measure on the finished quilt. The quilt settings panel shows it as “Finished with borders”, and it is what batting, backing and binding are sized against. The design wall's width and height are the smaller number, borders left out. For a piece, the finished size is what it measures once sewn in; the size you cut it at is its cut size.

Background

The color of the design wall behind the quilt, seen through any gaps between pieces and through the part of a square a shape leaves empty when nothing sits behind it. It is a preview color, not fabric, so it never appears on the shopping list.

Grid

The squares the design wall is divided into, set by block width and height (6″ × 6″ to start). Each square on the grid is one space. The grid guides placing and snapping, and when sashing is on, each space grows by the sashing width. Pieces are not forced onto it — the grid is a ruler, not a container.

Space

One spot on the grid, the size of one block. An empty space is where the next block or piece can go: with Place on, clicking a space fills it.

Center lines

A pair of drafting lines through the middle of the quilt, one up and down and one across, turned on in Grid settings. They mark the true center for lining up a medallion, a border or a mirrored design, and they never appear on a saved picture, a post or a printed pattern.

Half-drop rows and columns

How the rows or columns of the grid line up. Rectangular is plain rows and columns. Half-drop rows shifts every other row by half a block width, for triangles and tumbling blocks; half-drop columns shifts every other column by half a block height, for a brick-like setting.

Working margin

The area around the quilt in the designer where pieces can be parked while you work. A piece counts as part of the quilt when its center is on the design wall, so anything parked outside is left out of the fabric calculator, the printable pattern and downloaded pictures. It is a shelf beside the quilt, not part of it.

Sashing

Strips of fabric between blocks to frame and separate them. Turning it on widens each space by the sashing width and adds its own row to the shopping list, measured as long strips across the quilt rather than as separate pieces.

Cornerstone

A small square set where sashing strips cross. It needs sashing to be on, and it only gets its own row on the shopping list when its fabric differs from the sashing fabric.

Border

A ring of fabric around the outside of the design wall. You can add several rings, each with its own width and fabric; ring 1 is the innermost. Borders are added on top of the design wall's size and are what batting, backing and binding are measured against.

On top and underneath

When two pieces overlap, one sits on top. Put on top and Tuck underneath move a piece all the way up or down; Up one and Down one move it a step. A piece with a shape shows whatever is underneath it through the part its shape leaves out.

Group

A saved, named selection of pieces, listed as a block group in some menus. It remembers which pieces belong to it rather than a snapshot of them, so the group keeps working after you move or recolor its pieces, and you can select it again in one click later.

Pieces, shapes and blocks

The words most worth getting right. A piece is one unit of one fabric, its shape is its outline, and a block is sewn from pieces — the same as in any quilting book.

Piece

One unit on the quilt: a square, triangle or curve of one fabric, placed at a position and size in inches. Pieces can overlap, turn and sit off the grid. The Dimensions panel counts blocks (how many block-size spaces the grid holds) separately from pieces (how many pieces those blocks are sewn from): an 84″ quilt of 12″ blocks is 7 blocks across and 7 down, but if those blocks are stars and checkerboards, the piece count is in the hundreds. Pieces parked on the working margin are not counted.

Block

A pieced unit sewn from pieces, as in any quilt pattern: a Nine Patch is nine pieces, three across and three down, and a half-square triangle unit is two triangle pieces. Pick classics such as Ohio Star and flying geese from the block library, or draw your own in the block designer, then put a block into any space on the grid. Put a block into nine spaces and you have nine blocks, three across and three down.

Shape

A piece's outline: a square, a half-square triangle, a quarter circle, a hexagon, or one you draw yourself. A shape trims the piece's square to that outline, so whatever is behind shows through the rest, and it records how much of the square the shape uses. That figure is the only way the fabric calculator knows a piece uses part of a square rather than all of it. See how shapes change yardage for the full explanation.

Coverage

How much of a piece's square its shape uses, shown as a percentage in the calculator. A half-square triangle is about 50%; a small circle in the center might be 20%. It is measured from the shape's real outline, so it is exact rather than estimated. A plain square is 100%.

Turning a shape

Each piece remembers its shape and how far that shape is turned inside the piece's square. Turning the shape turns it within the square; turning the piece turns both together.

Shape Designer

The tool where you draw your own shape. It saves the outline and works out its coverage from it, so every shape you draw is measured correctly by the calculator.

Shapes and My Shapes

Shapes holds every shape you can use; My Shapes are the ones you have drawn and saved. They work in every quilt, so a triangle drawn once can be used anywhere.

Inverse shape

The opposite of a shape — the part of the square the first shape leaves behind. The Invert switch in the Shape Designer makes one: it keeps the piece everywhere the shape is not. Pairing a shape with its inverse is how you make a two-fabric unit that measures correctly, instead of stacking two full squares.

Stacked pieces

Several full squares piled in one space to fake a pieced unit. It looks right on screen, but the calculator counts every square in full — the usual reason yardage comes out two to four times too high. The fix is one piece per fabric, each with its own shape.

Fabrics and color

What goes on a piece, and how a printed fabric is made to look its real size.

Fabric

A print or photo in your stash. On the shopping list, each fabric is one row to buy — every piece using it adds into that row, so twelve pieces of one red are a single row, and two different reds are two.

Solid

A flat color with no print. Solids are unlimited on every account, including the free one.

Photo fabric

A fabric made from a photograph. The crop starts square, which suits a repeating print; a fabric panel can be any shape, including one whose size you type in. How large the print appears is decided by that crop, the fill mode and the print scale. See fabric print scale.

Library

Everything you design with, in My Library. Its tabs are Quilts, Blocks, Shapes, Fabrics, Colors, Projects and Bundles. Library fabrics are available in every quilt and keep the name you gave them, which is the name on the shopping list. With a paid plan, your library is on your iPhone, iPad and computer.

Bundle

A named set of fabrics, colors or shapes to work from — the fabrics for one quilt, say. Unlike a fabric-shop bundle, it remembers which items belong to it rather than keeping copies, so changing a fabric updates every bundle it is in.

Fill (Stretch to fit / Repeat print)

How a fabric photo fills a piece that is not the same shape as the photo. Stretch to fit scales one copy to fill the piece, so a 12″ piece shows one giant motif. Repeat print repeats the print, which is what you want for a print at its true size.

Print scale

How many inches of real fabric the photo shows across, used to repeat the print so it looks life size. Larger numbers make the motif smaller. Setting it switches the piece to Repeat print; leaving it at 0 repeats the photo once per space. The same measurement can be saved once on a library fabric, where it is called Print width.

Palette

The set of colors offered when you place pieces. Each color has a name as well as a color code, and that name is what appears on the shopping list — so naming them well makes the pattern easier to shop from. See color theory for choosing them.

Working in the designer

The tools in the toolbar and the panels either side of the design wall.

Select tool

Click to select a piece, drag to move it, or drag across an empty part of the design wall to select several at once. Keyboard shortcut V.

Place tool

Pick a fabric, shape and turn in the side panel, then click spaces to place pieces, or drag across pieces already down to stamp on top of them. Keyboard shortcut B.

Stamp

What the Place tool puts down, set by three switches — fabric, shape and turn. A switch turned off leaves that part of the piece underneath alone, so you can change colors without disturbing the shapes, or change shapes without disturbing the colors.

Paste

How a copy lands when you click to place it or press ⌘V. Fit grid keeps the copy at the size you copied and snaps it onto the grid under the pointer, so a block you resized stays that size. Into square shrinks or grows the whole copy to fit the one space under the pointer, nesting a small design inside a single block.

Snap

Where a piece you drag settles when you let go. Space corner fills a space or tucks a smaller piece into its nearest corner, Space center puts the piece's center in the middle of a space, Where lines cross puts it where grid lines cross, Halfway along a line puts it halfway along a grid line for setting triangles, Against other pieces sets it right against pieces already down, Outline fits shapes such as hexagons together along their edges, and Off lets you place it anywhere.

Mirror

Extra copies of each piece you place, reflected or turned around the quilt's center. Single is ordinary placing. Left to right and Top to bottom reflect across one line, Four-way fills all four quarters, and the Turn modes copy around the center. The preview under the pointer shows every copy before you click.

Inspector

The right-hand panel: what is selected, and the fabric, shape and arrange controls for it. The left panel holds the settings for the whole quilt — size, grid, sashing and borders.

Arrange

Lining up, spacing out and reordering the selection, including which piece sits in front when two overlap — Front, Back and one step either way.

Select by

The search in the designer toolbar. It groups the pieces already on the quilt by fabric, color, shape, turn, size or saved group. One click selects every match; with the box empty, the list then follows the selection so further clicks narrow it, and typing looks through the whole quilt. Shift-click adds another row without narrowing, so you can pick several shapes or fabrics first. Select all that match adds every piece that shares the selection's fabric or color, turn or shape.

Designer

The full-screen quilt editor itself, not the pack designer that styles the printed pattern. Opening a quilt takes you into the designer.

Fabric calculation

The calculator adds up the area of every piece in your quilt, then turns that area into a length off the bolt. It measures the pieces, not the picture.

Fabric calculator

The yardage report for a saved quilt: a row per fabric, plus backing, batting and binding. It counts only the pieces on the quilt, so anything parked in the working margin is left out. Try the standalone fabric calculator.

Shopping list

The fabric rows of the calculation, one per fabric to buy, sorted by how much you need. Each row adds up every piece using that fabric and breaks down into variations.

Piecing fabric

The total yardage for the quilt top: every fabric in the pieces plus sashing, cornerstones and borders. Backing, batting and binding are counted separately, because they are bought differently.

Assumptions

The settings the calculation runs on — seam allowance, width of fabric, waste allowance, how far batting and backing extend past the quilt, binding method and rounding. They are printed in the pattern so anyone sewing from it knows what the numbers assumed.

Variation

A group within one fabric's row that shares the same size and shape — for example “6″ square, triangle shape, 12 pieces”. Turning is ignored on purpose, because a turned piece needs the same fabric as an unturned one.

Seam allowance

The margin added around every piece for sewing, ¼″ by default. Each piece therefore grows by ½″ in both directions before its area is counted — that is the fabric that disappears into the seams.

Waste factor

A percentage added to the total to cover trimming and mistakes, 15% by default. It is added after seam allowances, before the total is turned into yards.

Shrinkage allowance

An optional extra percentage for fabric you will prewash. Off unless you turn it on in the measurement settings.

Width of fabric (WOF)

How wide the fabric on the bolt is. Quilting cotton is usually 42″ wide, with about 40″ usable once the selvages are trimmed off. The calculator works out yardage against 42″ unless you change it in the measurement settings — set it to 40″ to leave room for trimming selvages. The total area is divided by this width to get a length, then rounded up to the next ⅛ yard, because that is how fabric is sold.

Fat quarter

A half yard cut in half across the width: 18″ × 22″, with about 18″ × 21″ usable once the selvage is trimmed. See the fat quarter calculator.

Backing

The fabric behind the quilt, measured to the finished size including borders plus 4″ extra on each side. When it is wider than the bolt, the calculator says how many widths to sew together. See the backing calculator.

Batting

The middle layer, measured to the finished size including borders plus 4″ extra on each side. Given as a size rather than yardage, since batting is sold in packages or off a wide roll. See the batting calculator.

Binding

The strip that wraps the quilt's raw edges, worked out from the distance around the quilt plus 10% for mitered corners and joins. You set the strip width and the method — double fold, single fold or bias. See the binding calculator.

The printable pattern

The pattern you print and sew from, made from a finished quilt.

Printable pattern

The full pattern as one PDF you print: cover, overview, shopping list, cutting chart, the shape and fabric guide, assembly map, templates and finishing notes. It is made from the saved quilt, so it always matches what is on the design wall.

This quilt's pattern ($4.99)

A one-time $4.99 purchase of one quilt's pattern: cutting sizes, yardage and the printable pattern for that quilt. The Quilter and Designer plans include it for every quilt.

Fabric key

The table on the pattern's At a glance page that gives each fabric a letter. Those letters are how the assembly map names every piece, so the key ties the diagram back to your shopping list.

Cutting chart

Every piece to cut, with its cut size — the finished size plus seam allowance — grouped by fabric and quantity.

Cut size

The size to cut a piece at, seam allowance included, as opposed to its finished size once sewn. A 6″ finished square is cut at 6½″. Wherever Quiltler gives a size, it says which of the two it is.

Shape and fabric guide

The picture page pairing each shape with the fabric it is cut from, so you can see what you are aiming for before trusting the numbers.

Assembly map

The diagram showing where each piece goes, labeling pieces by their fabric letter from the shopping list.

Template

The printed, full-size outline of a shape in the pattern, with a dashed finished line and a solid cutting line. Only shapes that cannot be rotary cut from a simple measurement get one; a half-square triangle, for example, is cut from a square instead. Every template page has a 1″ square to check your printer has not shrunk it.

Mirrored templates

Optional flipped, full-size copies of a patchwork quilt’s shaped pieces, one to a sheet, for sewing onto the printed paper where the picture needs to be reversed. Sew on the dashed lines, then trim on the solid line. One shape each, with no patch numbers.

Foundation sheets

What a foundation paper piecing panel prints: one mirrored, true-scale sheet per section, every patch numbered in sewing order and lettered by fabric, with a section map for joining them. Draw the panel by starting a quilt with Foundation paper piecing.

Designer notes

An optional personal page after the cover — the story of the quilt, tips, a thank-you. Leave it blank and the page is not printed.

Theme

The accent color and lettering style the pattern is printed in, chosen in the pack designer.

Preview PDF

The free sample attached to a listing. Every page has the Quiltler watermark, and everything you could sew from is held back — cutting sizes, the cutting chart, the shape and fabric guide and the templates — leaving what a shopper needs to judge the pattern before buying.

Sharing and selling

The community feed and the Marketplace.

Community

The public feed of shared quilts, and the word for anything other quilters have shared — the Shapes and Fabrics pages have a Community view too. Sharing a quilt posts a picture of it and its pieces; your fabric photos stay yours.

Save to my quilts

Saves a copy of a quilt shared in the community into your own quilts, where you can change it freely. The original is untouched, and the post shows how many times it has been saved.

Marketplace

Where finished patterns are bought and sold. A purchase is more than a PDF: the quilt opens in the studio, so a buyer can swap fabrics, recolor, resize and recalculate. Browse the Marketplace.

Listing

One pattern for sale — cover picture, gallery, description, price, difficulty, finished size and tags — made from one of your quilts. A listing is a draft while you work on it, active once published, and unlisted when taken off sale.

Selling

Your side of the Marketplace: listings you have published, sales, earnings and reviews. Payouts go through Stripe, which you connect once before a listing can go on sale. Any paid plan can sell.

Marketplace fee

Quiltler's share of each sale: 10% on the Quilter plan, 5% on the Designer plan. The pricing step spells out what the buyer pays, what the fee is and what you receive, so the price you set is the price they see.

Reviews

Ratings and comments on a listing, left only by people who bought the pattern. The average shows on the listing card and on your Selling page.

License

The rights line printed in a pattern's credits, saying what a buyer may do with the pattern. It is all rights reserved unless you change it, and is only printed in full on patterns made for sale.

Difficulty (Skill level)

How hard a pattern is to sew: Beginner, Intermediate or Advanced. It shows on the listing and on the pattern cover, where it is labeled Skill level.

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