Stripes are often neglected by many quilters, who feel that they are too much of a challenge to incorporate in a quilt. I would like to encourage you, however, to use stripes in your quilting!
Striped quilting fabrics are wonderfully versatile and lends extra personality to any quilt. Don't be intimidated by stripes!
Always remember that most stripes will have a higher contrast in colour and therefore it will appear more obvious in your quilt. Grain line of the fabric is also a controversial aspect of directional fabrics. Use some starch on the fabric when needed, as it will definitely tame the bias.
Stripes can create excitement to a quilt, or even a primitive folk-art look.
Stripes also makes a great border or even a binding. If your quilt top is very busy or visually needs to be pulled together, you can use the stripes on-grain. The parallel lines will give you the control that you need.
For a quiet look, the stripes can be placed parallel to the quilt edge, but when more excitement is needed, you can even place the fabric on the bias!
Striped fabric in quilting allows other patterned fabric to show-off better. Traditionally striped fabrics were used in antique quilts to showcase the other fabrics. This used to be a very important quilting relationship.
Today fabric manufacturers produce lots of wonderful, fun to use stripes that can enhance your quilts and fortunately you can cut your stripes with a rotary cutter and ruler, which can be lined up so easily! Don't you just love quilting in our modern world?!
Tip: When you cut stripes, rather cut a single layer, because you can more easily line up the ruler with the lines on the fabric.
Quiltsew offers a broad selection of striped quilting fabrics, feel free to browse our store!
This article was written by: Maria Kotzé
SAQG Accredited Quilt Teacher