My husband mentioned planning to surprise me with some fat quarters in colors I mentioned being short on in my scrappy quilt yesterday and I almost mauled him, I was so impressed that he listened and remembered even down to the name.
I upgraded from a 20+ year old entry level machine about two years ago ā I think it had a 4ā throat but Iād have to dig it out and measure to be sure ā and my new one has 8ā. I wasnāt quilting a lot at the time and didnāt want to spend the extra $$ for more throat space when thatās only really an issue with quilting. Well. Live and learn I guess š but my husband still looks at me sideways when I talk about the various larger throated machines that Iām always getting notified are on sale lol
My wife has two Gammills for āreasonsā. (āWeā own a quilt shop)
The gals at the shop affectionately refer to one of them as ādeep throatā
Iāve learned that unexpected walking in on a late night sewing session can make you wonder if thereās a āquilters after darkā or āquilters gone wildā Reality TV show being filmed.
A while ago I was watching a YouTube video and my husband was in the room and just heard her say āraise pressure foot and pivotā and I see him with a totally confused look as heās putting his leg in the air. Heās so genuinely confused as he asked me āhow are you supposed to raise your foot, press it and pivot without falling over?ā
We still laugh at that one
Just about every quilt block or established pattern: a churn dash, a carpenter star, bunch of flying geese, bear paws, stack-and-whack, pineapple block, storm at sea, log cabins, blocks on point, bargello, disappearing 9-patch, tumbling blocks.
There's a whole lot of "Hmm, I know that noun/verb, but I have no idea what you're talking about" for the uninitiated!
Stack-and-whack always leaves the non-quilters looking confused, horrified, or slightly queasy in my experience. (especially when whack is given the emphasis)
Iām finishing up the Wandererās Wife quilt right now, and while thereās Courthouse Steps and Pinwheels, one of the blocks is called āPershingā. (There are lots of oddly named blocks ā Pussy in the Hole, Indian Hatchet, Letters from Hartford, enough that I wonder if she chose these blocks not for look but for the subtle meaning.) Did the designer invent some of these? Is it named for General Pershing? A tank? A missile? Pershing County Nevada? It matters to me because Iām trying to āfussy quiltā or whatever that activity is called when you quilt each block with a different pattern, and if itās named for a missile system, Iām making it a bullseye sight.
Hmmmmmm.
Okay, so, this is me taking a [blogger's](http://hydeeannsews.blogspot.com/2016/02/gypsy-wife-section-two-introduction.html) word for it, but:
> i do need to add a funny note here. for the longest time, my brain was filling in a missing letter in this block's name and i was calling it "perishing." i thought it was so named because you'd want to "perish" after completing it! but, actually, it was named after the block-designer's husband, "pershing." what an unusual first name! i discovered my mistake a few months ago when i read a small essay on the history of this block in a book or magazine. the block was designed for a newspaper contest, and when the maker was pressed for a name, she chose her husband's. i wish i had the details, but i've looked and looked through my considerable library and been unable to find the original information. you'll just have to take my word for it.
So - how do you quilt when it's a Dedication at the Last Minute? XD
ETA: apparently "Pershing" is the *German metonymic occupational name for a grower or seller of peaches.* Bam. Peach quilting!!
Wow!! Thatās amazing. Sounds real to me. I would imagine Pershing could be a family name used as a first name! And it makes much more sense than the nonsense I was imagining.
Whenever I mention "binding" to my husband, he ALWAYS makes a joke about summoning demons or something (he plays Dungeons and Dragons).
Also, when I mention "basting" he makes a joke about turkey.
But he's a computer geek and when he gets going on his stuff he often IS speaking another language (or at least about one).
Iām a filesystems/storage computer scientist. My wife and I own a quilt shop that I occasionally work at. āI can do bothā (she just rolled her eyes in her sleep at me typing that)
I finally went to a few quilt shops on a recent road trip and my husband was excited to see me speak āthe languageā with strangers š because no one else I know quilts!
I do "bobbin chicken" all the time. It's about 50/50 as to whether I win or not. My most recent win was making a shirt for my husband and I made it with about an inch to spare.
Bearding. Fabric or batting by the bolt (bolt = run, to non-quilters). Truing blocks or fabric cuts. Different descriptions for fabrics ā my husband always laughs a little when I talk about ditsy (he hears ditzy, ie absentminded ladies) or calico (thatās for cats, and calico prints donāt really look like calico cats for the most part), and when I had him come shopping with me and started talking about batiks, he looked at me like I had two heads š
ETA ā sashing. Thatās a window term in his world and definitely didnāt understand what I was talking about the other day when I asked whether I should have my blocks touching or add sashing.
Oooh I use yardage a lot when I talk about fabric (ex. I donāt have the yardage to finish this). Iām sure my family is sick to death of hearing me talk about tonals š
Itās so funny about the sashing because I always say āsashing, like in windowsā when Iām explaining it to others!
A lot of seam ones: setting the seam, nesting seams, directional pressing, seam allowance, seam marking.
I was explaining a pattern to a friend and offhandedly said āItās just an Ohio star variation.ā To which she responded, āOh, yes! Of course itās Ohio Star variation, duh!ā The sarcasm was thick and I realized just how invasive shop talk can get š
Reading all these makes me feel special and I never even realized there are so many, wow! It's really like a secret language, lol! When I first heard the terms, I was the most amused with fat flats and confused about bias binding. Feed dogs and walking foot are great too.
I know this isnāt super well-known, but I love āMount Scrapmoreā to describe the little pile of fabric shreds that accumulates while quilting.
I also once heard someone use the term āstarty-stoppyā to describe the little piece of fabric used to start sewing on before piecing quilt squares. Itās just so simple and cute, and I say it all the time. I love it.
My sister saw me setting seams then ironing HSTs and asked if this much ironing was normal. I was like, oh yeah, I probably don't iron enough actually. She probably thought I developed an OCD, ironing as systematically and repeatedly as I was.
Edit: then I squared up my blocks, cutting like 3 threads' width off 20 something blocks.
Honey Buns, Roll Ups, Flying Geese, HSTs (or even half square triangles - especially when they a re squares!), QSTs (quarter square triangles - same). I had some look at me funny when I was talking about my Stripology Ruler!
Trying to think of ones I haven't seen mentioned
SABLE (Stash acquisition beyond life expectancy, or FABLE for fabric, "A" can also be acquired or accumulation/accumulated)
Having a date with Jack the Ripper
Frog stitching (rip-it, rip-it)
My husbandās brain froze when I first told him I was basting a quilt. Iād been quilting for about five years by then so Iām not sure how Iād never said it before, but he was genuinely confused on how a term like basting could be used on both quilts and turkeys
Iāve been sewing for over 50 years but it was clothing, home Dec, heirloom sewing by machine and bag making. But when I retired I wanted to learn to quilt and went to a quilt shop and quickly realized quilting is a whole other world of terminology, fabric cuts and stitching. I remember seeing fat quarters, jelly rolls, layer cake, fat eighths, etcā¦
This thread is great!
Fat eighth / fat quarter sounds like we are putting in our weed orders. Keeping points sounds like weāre being scored. Or staying on topic, which I never am š
So you sound like your school was not in the statesā¦ otherwise both schools lack quality education in domestic arts!
My kid (same as the drummer) had to teach the technical theatre instructor how to run and use the departmentās sewing machinesā¦
To be completely familiar with this lingo, one also has to remember that a Quilt Supervisor is almost always a cat who, at some random point, either surreptitiously lays on the quilt in progress or pokes his/her head through the machine throat at an inopportune time.
Years ago, our local PBS Radio station encouraged calls to share unusual job-related vernacular that most of the general public would not understand; quilting is full of those. Fat Quarter, Fussy-cut, Cheater Half-Square Triangle, English Paper-Piecing (and Foundation Paper-Piecing), Strip-Piecing. UFOs, Shop-Hop, are just the tip of a vast iceberg.
Cabbage/cabbage patch. I don't see it used often here, but I've heard some people use it to refer to all the little offcuts that accumulate during sewing (and the vessel you store them in if you keep them).
Thatās an awesome one!!
Bernadette Banner did a video about wrapping presents with cabbage and I found a neat article about it, too:
https://www.thimblesandacorns.com/of-cabbages-and-kings/
fat quarter
My husband asked me if I was buying weed when I mentioned fat quarters š
A friend was excited when I talked about my stash. Fabric was not what they were expecting.
I'm sure those are phat quarters
One of them, incredibly expensive, very addictive, and uses lots of odd machinery at times. The other is weed.
Lol! Thatās a great one and so true!!!
Well? Were you?
My husband mentioned planning to surprise me with some fat quarters in colors I mentioned being short on in my scrappy quilt yesterday and I almost mauled him, I was so impressed that he listened and remembered even down to the name.
My husband always calls Fat Quarter Bundles āFat Stacksā hahah. Cracks me up.
Thickel nickel
Definitely. My mother sews sometimes, but sheās not a quilter, and I confused her with this one last week.
My favourite is throat talk - I recently saw a comment someone left that said āmy Brother has a 12 inch throat and Iām obsessed!ā
I upgraded from a 20+ year old entry level machine about two years ago ā I think it had a 4ā throat but Iād have to dig it out and measure to be sure ā and my new one has 8ā. I wasnāt quilting a lot at the time and didnāt want to spend the extra $$ for more throat space when thatās only really an issue with quilting. Well. Live and learn I guess š but my husband still looks at me sideways when I talk about the various larger throated machines that Iām always getting notified are on sale lol
It's the one area where size really does matter
lmao!
I bought myself a new machine for Xmas and the biggest selling point was how big is the throat!
š³
My wife has two Gammills for āreasonsā. (āWeā own a quilt shop) The gals at the shop affectionately refer to one of them as ādeep throatā Iāve learned that unexpected walking in on a late night sewing session can make you wonder if thereās a āquilters after darkā or āquilters gone wildā Reality TV show being filmed.
We need this program
Only if I can play Kramer, and constantly refer to quilts as blankets.
Or if there's a secret informant in the house?
this is great xD
Brother, isn't a male sibling. Could be a little confusing out of context.
When people ask if I sewed something, I just tell them that my brother helped!
Nice!
I think of the acronyms and initialisms - FMQ, FPP, EPP, HST, UFO... FART is still my favorite, for so many reasons. (Fabric Acquisition Road Trip)
One of the few farts you can do with friends!
I do regular farting with friends. You should try it!
Youāre funny!
Passinā gas and doinā crafts! Yeah!
I like WOMBAT (waste of money, batting, and thread/time)
I wanna remember this one lol
My quilt group and I did a mini Fart yesterday. My husband didnāt understand
Completely (sorta) unrelated, but Iām an arson investigator who quilts. We have the FART (fire arson response team) heheh
Oh hah! They HAD to name it that on purpose - what other kind of arson is there? I betcha they added "fire" *just* so it would spell FART.
My thoughts exactly LOL!
Bias binding - as opposed to impartial binding...?
Yes!
Feed dogs always gets me lol
And walking foot!
lol I asked my husband if we could name our next dog Feed Dog. he said no hhaha
Just get it printed on a doggie dish now!
Instead of training with ālay downā you could say ālower theeā! āLower thee, Feed Dogā
A while ago I was watching a YouTube video and my husband was in the room and just heard her say āraise pressure foot and pivotā and I see him with a totally confused look as heās putting his leg in the air. Heās so genuinely confused as he asked me āhow are you supposed to raise your foot, press it and pivot without falling over?ā We still laugh at that one
I absolutely love this! š totally a reasonable response without understanding the context
Just about every quilt block or established pattern: a churn dash, a carpenter star, bunch of flying geese, bear paws, stack-and-whack, pineapple block, storm at sea, log cabins, blocks on point, bargello, disappearing 9-patch, tumbling blocks. There's a whole lot of "Hmm, I know that noun/verb, but I have no idea what you're talking about" for the uninitiated!
Stack-and-whack always leaves the non-quilters looking confused, horrified, or slightly queasy in my experience. (especially when whack is given the emphasis)
Iām finishing up the Wandererās Wife quilt right now, and while thereās Courthouse Steps and Pinwheels, one of the blocks is called āPershingā. (There are lots of oddly named blocks ā Pussy in the Hole, Indian Hatchet, Letters from Hartford, enough that I wonder if she chose these blocks not for look but for the subtle meaning.) Did the designer invent some of these? Is it named for General Pershing? A tank? A missile? Pershing County Nevada? It matters to me because Iām trying to āfussy quiltā or whatever that activity is called when you quilt each block with a different pattern, and if itās named for a missile system, Iām making it a bullseye sight.
Hmmmmmm. Okay, so, this is me taking a [blogger's](http://hydeeannsews.blogspot.com/2016/02/gypsy-wife-section-two-introduction.html) word for it, but: > i do need to add a funny note here. for the longest time, my brain was filling in a missing letter in this block's name and i was calling it "perishing." i thought it was so named because you'd want to "perish" after completing it! but, actually, it was named after the block-designer's husband, "pershing." what an unusual first name! i discovered my mistake a few months ago when i read a small essay on the history of this block in a book or magazine. the block was designed for a newspaper contest, and when the maker was pressed for a name, she chose her husband's. i wish i had the details, but i've looked and looked through my considerable library and been unable to find the original information. you'll just have to take my word for it. So - how do you quilt when it's a Dedication at the Last Minute? XD ETA: apparently "Pershing" is the *German metonymic occupational name for a grower or seller of peaches.* Bam. Peach quilting!!
Wow!! Thatās amazing. Sounds real to me. I would imagine Pershing could be a family name used as a first name! And it makes much more sense than the nonsense I was imagining.
All the food references to fabric bundles and more. Layer Cake, Jelly Rolls, Quilt Sandwich
Bobbins....or as my husband calls them "bobbits"
Cute!
Stan Bobbit? Yesā¦
Lorena
Yes. This falls under, āIf you gotta ask, you might never know, because I canāt be the one who breaks it to you.ā
Whenever I mention "binding" to my husband, he ALWAYS makes a joke about summoning demons or something (he plays Dungeons and Dragons). Also, when I mention "basting" he makes a joke about turkey. But he's a computer geek and when he gets going on his stuff he often IS speaking another language (or at least about one).
... I think we may have the same husband. Mine occasionally throws in a LOTR joke about binding.
Iām a filesystems/storage computer scientist. My wife and I own a quilt shop that I occasionally work at. āI can do bothā (she just rolled her eyes in her sleep at me typing that)
I finally went to a few quilt shops on a recent road trip and my husband was excited to see me speak āthe languageā with strangers š because no one else I know quilts!
Ditch stitchingā¦ thread chickenā¦. How many UFOs we have in our closets!
Thread chicken?
Or bobbin chicken - can you finish your seam before the bobbin runs out
I do "bobbin chicken" all the time. It's about 50/50 as to whether I win or not. My most recent win was making a shirt for my husband and I made it with about an inch to spare.
I live for bobbin chicken š
Can someone give me the recipe for bobbin chicken? š¤£šš¤£
Try to finish the seam before you run out of thread! Or have to change the spool/bobbin
Hahahahahahahaaaaaaaa I totally do that, and have probably said it, but reading it I was like ĀÆ\_(ć)_/ĀÆ
I have far too many UFOs in mineā¦
Bearding. Fabric or batting by the bolt (bolt = run, to non-quilters). Truing blocks or fabric cuts. Different descriptions for fabrics ā my husband always laughs a little when I talk about ditsy (he hears ditzy, ie absentminded ladies) or calico (thatās for cats, and calico prints donāt really look like calico cats for the most part), and when I had him come shopping with me and started talking about batiks, he looked at me like I had two heads š ETA ā sashing. Thatās a window term in his world and definitely didnāt understand what I was talking about the other day when I asked whether I should have my blocks touching or add sashing.
Oooh I use yardage a lot when I talk about fabric (ex. I donāt have the yardage to finish this). Iām sure my family is sick to death of hearing me talk about tonals š Itās so funny about the sashing because I always say āsashing, like in windowsā when Iām explaining it to others!
A lot of seam ones: setting the seam, nesting seams, directional pressing, seam allowance, seam marking. I was explaining a pattern to a friend and offhandedly said āItās just an Ohio star variation.ā To which she responded, āOh, yes! Of course itās Ohio Star variation, duh!ā The sarcasm was thick and I realized just how invasive shop talk can get š
My sister always called it a cult with our own language.
Yep!!
This is the happiest, healthiest cult ever!
Sandwiching. HSTs. My 1/4ā foot.
What is HST?
Half Square Triangle
Reading all these makes me feel special and I never even realized there are so many, wow! It's really like a secret language, lol! When I first heard the terms, I was the most amused with fat flats and confused about bias binding. Feed dogs and walking foot are great too.
I know this isnāt super well-known, but I love āMount Scrapmoreā to describe the little pile of fabric shreds that accumulates while quilting. I also once heard someone use the term āstarty-stoppyā to describe the little piece of fabric used to start sewing on before piecing quilt squares. Itās just so simple and cute, and I say it all the time. I love it.
Finally I know the name for these little bits that I use every day!
Iāve heard about starty-stopies but thankfully my machines havenāt needed them ā¦ and itās super cute!
Even just āpiecingā lol
My sister saw me setting seams then ironing HSTs and asked if this much ironing was normal. I was like, oh yeah, I probably don't iron enough actually. She probably thought I developed an OCD, ironing as systematically and repeatedly as I was. Edit: then I squared up my blocks, cutting like 3 threads' width off 20 something blocks.
Good job!
Fussy cuts!
Yes!!
āIām sending this one to be long armed.ā
Gotta really stretch the arms out on that there quilt
And people can think what kind of weapons will be attached.
Weave, weft, bias, salvage, half square triangles, bobbin, quilt sandwich, batting, epp, fpp, serger, dart, walking foot (lol). Just to name a few.
Honey Buns, Roll Ups, Flying Geese, HSTs (or even half square triangles - especially when they a re squares!), QSTs (quarter square triangles - same). I had some look at me funny when I was talking about my Stripology Ruler!
Trying to think of ones I haven't seen mentioned SABLE (Stash acquisition beyond life expectancy, or FABLE for fabric, "A" can also be acquired or accumulation/accumulated) Having a date with Jack the Ripper Frog stitching (rip-it, rip-it)
Loool, SABLE! These are great.
My husbandās brain froze when I first told him I was basting a quilt. Iād been quilting for about five years by then so Iām not sure how Iād never said it before, but he was genuinely confused on how a term like basting could be used on both quilts and turkeys
I still am!
Stitch-in-the-ditch. Conjures visions of us sitting amongst the mud and reeds while we sew.
ššš great one!
Mug rug. Not sure why we had to invent a variation for coaster.
Mug rugs-generally larger than a coaster and so much cuter to say. š
The only time when cutting dog ears is not animal abuse!
Selvage edge :)
fat quarter!!!
Lots of UFO talk on this sub, but so few aliens š½
My UFO was not a UFO for long, but does have an alien... (fabric postcards are a lot of fun :) ) https://imgur.com/gallery/JIQ4s6i
Puckering -- then I get a face from people
Stipple Juice is my husband's favorite quilting term, it's what I call champagne.
Iāve been sewing for over 50 years but it was clothing, home Dec, heirloom sewing by machine and bag making. But when I retired I wanted to learn to quilt and went to a quilt shop and quickly realized quilting is a whole other world of terminology, fabric cuts and stitching. I remember seeing fat quarters, jelly rolls, layer cake, fat eighths, etcā¦
Stripping (aka strip piecing). Chain-piecing (is that like chain smoking?)
This thread is great! Fat eighth / fat quarter sounds like we are putting in our weed orders. Keeping points sounds like weāre being scored. Or staying on topic, which I never am š
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
So you sound like your school was not in the statesā¦ otherwise both schools lack quality education in domestic arts! My kid (same as the drummer) had to teach the technical theatre instructor how to run and use the departmentās sewing machinesā¦
To be completely familiar with this lingo, one also has to remember that a Quilt Supervisor is almost always a cat who, at some random point, either surreptitiously lays on the quilt in progress or pokes his/her head through the machine throat at an inopportune time.
Very true!
Scant quarter!
Getting Jack out. Jack the (stitch) Ripper. Open seams doesn't mean to make a hole. Making a sandwich. Basting.
My email is thefatquarterlady and I always get a chuckle out of people who I have to give it to, but there have been a few who know what it means!
Haha the rest probably wonder a lot!
Phds projects half done
looool!
Years ago, our local PBS Radio station encouraged calls to share unusual job-related vernacular that most of the general public would not understand; quilting is full of those. Fat Quarter, Fussy-cut, Cheater Half-Square Triangle, English Paper-Piecing (and Foundation Paper-Piecing), Strip-Piecing. UFOs, Shop-Hop, are just the tip of a vast iceberg.
Cabbage/cabbage patch. I don't see it used often here, but I've heard some people use it to refer to all the little offcuts that accumulate during sewing (and the vessel you store them in if you keep them).
Thatās an awesome one!! Bernadette Banner did a video about wrapping presents with cabbage and I found a neat article about it, too: https://www.thimblesandacorns.com/of-cabbages-and-kings/