How to plan a quilt from your stash

30 September 2026 · Sashing guides

Plan it in your own fabrics with Sashing →

Take stock: measure and photograph

Pull the candidates and write down what each one really is, not what you think it is. A fat quarter is sold as 18 × 22″, and after the selvage comes off it is roughly 18 × 20″. A half yard is 18″ by the full width, about 40″ usable. Photograph each one flat in daylight. You will be comparing them side by side, and photos let you do that without unfolding everything each time.

Know how much each role eats

Roles are not equal. In a 62 × 76″ throw of twenty 12″ Ohio Stars with sashing and a border (the worked throw example):

The background needs more than the other roles put together. That is the usual reason a stash quilt stalls halfway: there were plenty of fabrics, but none big enough to be the ground.

Match fabrics to roles by size, then by looks

1. Sort your pieces from largest to smallest.
2. Give the largest pieces the biggest roles, if they can do the job. A background needs to be calm and read as one value.
3. Fill the blocks with the rest. Small pieces are perfect for star points and centres.
4. Audition the combination before cutting anything; see how to audition fabrics.

Go scrappy where one fabric is not enough

If no single fabric covers the star points, use several. Give each block its own, or alternate two. The quilt often looks better for it. The amount per fabric then drops to what its blocks use. In Sashing you can recolour just the blocks you pick, and the yardage screen lists each fabric's share separately, so you can see whether each piece is big enough.

One caution: yardage figures, Sashing's included, assume strips cut across a full width of fabric. A fat quarter gives strips about 20″ long, half as many pieces per strip. For fat quarters, count pieces rather than yards. Four 4½″ squares fit along a 20″ strip, for example, where a full-width strip holds eight.

Shrink the quilt to fit the stash

If the numbers do not work, change the quilt rather than the shopping list. Drop a row of blocks, narrow the sashing, or leave off the outer border. Each one reduces the biggest role. The quilt sizes chart shows how much smaller a crib or throw is than a bed quilt. Borders are often the easiest saving: border fabric is easy to work out, and easy to buy later.

Buy once, for the gap

Once the plan works, the shopping list is usually one or two fabrics: the background, and perhaps the backing. Take the list, and a photo of the fabrics you are matching, to the shop. With the exact yardage in hand you buy it once, instead of going back for a second trip.