The first piece of advice, especially if you are a novice quilter, is to work at first only on quilts where you have clear instructions that include the amount of fabric to buy, like the quilts in quilt magazines, Internet sites, and quilt kits. Quality instructions will tell you the right amount of fabric for each part of the quilt; you don’t need to guess on your own.

Once you fall in love with quilting as a hobby you also fall in love with all kinds of quilt fabrics. On any trip to the fabric mart, whether in person or online, you are likely to find a fabric that tickles your fancy and that you can’t live without. Buying fabrics that you like when you see them gives you a wonderful supply of fabrics to play with when it comes time to make a new quilt. Here are some guidelines for buying fabric:

• 1 yard is a good amount to buy in general
• 3 yards is a good amount to buy for a full-size quilt border
• buy 6 yards for backing fabric
• buy 1 yard for quilt binding
• buy ¼ yard for later use somewhere

A regular quarter yard of fabric is 9 inches off of the end of a bolt of 44 inch fabric; you take home a piece of fabric 9 by 44 inches. This is not usually a convenient size for cutting quilt pieces efficiently and instead quilt shops sell what are called fat quarters. A fat quarter gives the same amount of fabric but in a shape that is more useful for quilters, 18 by 22 inches. You will get more useful fabric for your money when you buy fat quarters.
·