Pros and Cons of Making Quilts From Precuts

I have a fun topic for you today – what are the pros and cons of piecing with precuts? So that is the topic for today’s podcast!

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What are the Pros of Piecing with Precut Fabric?

1. Precuts are faster! You don’t have to buy yardage (which takes time to get cut) and then wash, starch and press it to get started. Precuts are faster to jump straight into piecing.
2. Nice colors in a pretty package – Precuts are super easy to impulse buy because they are such pretty colors all in one neatly wrapped package. The upside is you don’t have to go pick up 40 bolts of fabric and get a tiny sliver of each to get the same super-scrappy effect of precuts.
3. You CAN make a quilt in a day! If you use only precuts (no yardage for the background) the process will be even faster and you can conceivably piece up some charm packs or layer cakes to make a new quilt in one day.
4. Lots of precut-specific patterns – Quilters have figured out that precuts are popular and many quilters write patterns exclusively for precuts.
5. Easy to design your own quilts – It’s kind of like making your own recipe in the kitchen. If you have a pack of 10 inch squares and 2 1/2 inch strips, it’s not too difficult to open them up and combine them together to make a neat quilt. The hard part is done for you (cutting) which leaves you the creative freedom to piece a beautiful quilt top with the shapes you have available.

What are the Cons of Piecing with Precut Fabrics?

1. Bleeding dye – Because you can’t prewash precuts, you cannot remove excess dyes from the fabrics. For this reason, be very careful with batik precuts especially. Batiks and hand dyed fabrics have a tendency to bleed. If you piece them with white or a light background or backing fabric, that light fabric may change color!
2. Great colors, but all one value! If you’ve ever taken a class on color theory, you’ll hear this: Color gets all the credit, but value does all the work. Value is the shade of the fabric – light, medium, or dark. Unfortunately most fabric collections are made from all one color value – medium. This means if you piece them all together, nothing is going to stand out and pop – it will all blend together, even if the prints are dynamically different because they are all the same value.
3. No choice – A precut is wrapped and final. There are no switch-outs! So you will end up with prints / colors you don’t like and what will you do with those?
4. More quilt tops! So this is a good thing, right? You can piece quilts in a day! But when will you get those quilt tops done, as in quilted and bound? Precuts give us the illusion of speed and simplicity, but it doesn’t take into account the second half of the quilting process. So make sure when you purchase a precut to also buy the backing fabric and batting you will need to finish that quilt. That way you have all the materials you need, AND you’ll understand the full cost of your quilt (and it’s a lot more expensive than just a charm pack!)

More downsides to Piecing with Precuts

1. Less Accurate – If you open a precut and immediately start piecing with it, you will run into problems. The fabric in the precut is going to be as loosey goosey, wobbly bobbly as fabric bought off the shelf. It also may not be cut very accurately. If you want to piece quilts perfectly, you’ll need to take a little time with that precut to apply starch carefully and press the pieces without distorting them. You may also need to trim a precut down to be a more accurate shape.
2. Non-precut Patterns – If you want to make a quilt, but the pattern isn’t written specifically for precuts, you may be in trouble. Most pattern writers will assume you are cutting from yardage and design their patterns accordingly. But a pattern not written for precuts will be very hard to make with precuts because it won’t take into account the size and shape you’re working with. You may also need a weird amount and end up with lots of scraps left over.
3. Messy Middle Blues – If you mis-cut a precut, there’s a slim chance you’ll be able to find that specific fabric again. Don’t let your quilt get stuck by this and just look in your stash for something similar, but go into any precut quilt knowing this is a possibility.

So that’s it for the pros and cons of precuts! Don’t get me wrong, guys, I love precuts! I’ve used them for years and I’ve designed a lot of fun quilt patterns using them.

But when you start to feel bored with your craft, you know something needs to change. If this is your feeling lately, branch out and try something new and totally different from what you’re making right now. I think the key to quilting is the challenged! We do this because it’s hard so we can feel pushed in a new direction.

Let’s go quilt,

Leah Day

More Hello My Quilting Friends Podcast Episodes:

• #117 – Make Your Dream Achievements Come True
• #116 – How Much Time Will This Quilt Take?
• #115 – Ten Steps to Finishing Your UFOs
• #114 – Priority is Singular!
• #113 – Celebrating Ten Years in Business!
• #112 – Back from July Vacation
• #111 – Unpacking from Quilt Fantastic
• #110 – The Game of Perfection
• #109 – A Short Story from Quilst
• #108 – Organize and Decorate Your Sewing Space with Stephanie Socha
• #107 – 7 Reasons Why I DO Want and Need a Longarm
• #106 – Can I Become a 1 Project Person?
• #105 – Time Lapse Quilting with Todd DuBay