Quilting Glossary

Chain Piecing
Assembly-line piecing, where aligned units are fed through the sewing machine one after another without breaking the threads between them.

Color Value
The perceived darkness or lightness of a fabric. Value of any given fabric can vary, depending on adjacent patches. A dark blue patch appears medium in value when sewn next to a black patch, but may be considered dark when sewn next to a pastel patch. Color warmth affects value too, since warm colors such as reds and yellows tend to move forward in the layout.

Finished Size
The size a unit will be after all adjacent seams are sewn.

Four Patch
A quilt block with units that can be evenly divided into four equal squares, two across and two down. Units are often subdivided to create smaller squares.

Quick Piecing
Any piecing method which eliminates the handling of individual patches of fabric. Pieces are typically sewn into large units that can be cut apart to produce multiple units.

Selvages
The outer, finished edges of fabric that run along the length of yardage, parallel to the lengthwise grain.

Straight Grain
The direction parallel to the threads in a piece of woven cloth. The lengthwise grain is parallel to the selvages, and is less stretchy than the threads in the crosswise grain, which runs at a 90 degree angle to it.

Strip Piecing
A quick piecing technique where long strips of fabric are joined lengthwise into strip sets to mimic a portion of a block. Short segments are cut from the set and then sewn with other segments to form the desired layout.