Do You Know Your Quilting Acronyms?

When I was a beginning quilter, I would come across abbreviations and acronyms in a pattern, or when reading a magazine, and say “what???” And because I started quilting over 35 years ago, the answer wasn’t always right at my fingertips on the computer. So, I thought I would have a bit of fun with week’s post talking about these acronyms. Maybe you’re a beginner right now and would benefit from this discussion. Or perhaps you are an experienced quilter and can share a laugh with me over how I, and maybe you, discovered the meaning of these acronyms.

There are serious acronyms and then there are “funny” acronyms. We will start off with the more serious ones that are used often in patterns and in books.

Some Common Acronyms

Here are a few of the common acronyms that I think all quilters should know when they begin quilting. 

Acronym #1: One of the first acronyms you should know when you begin quilting is WOF. That acronym stands for width of fabric. It is often referred to when you are cutting pieces for a quilt. Width of fabric is the measurement of the piece of fabric from selvage to selvage (photo below).

This is often used when you are instructed to cut strips for a project. If the pattern says to cut 1 1/2 x WOF strips from yardage, they will typically be 40″ to 42″ in length. If you are cutting from a fat quarter, they will typically be 20″ to 21″ in length. Knowing the width of your fabric before you start cutting out pieces will help you to figure how many pieces you can cut from each strip which helps you to calculate how many strips you need. And by knowing the number of strips you need, you will then know how much fabric you need to buy.

Acronym #2: These next ones sometimes go together so that’s why I will cover them together. HST and QST will show up in many patterns that have designs including triangles. HST stands for half-square triangle and QST stands for quarter-square triangle. That would be these:

The HSTs are on the above left and are created by cutting a square in half and the QSTs are on the above right and are created by cutting a square in quarters. You will see that when I join these with HSTs and QSTs of different colors, they make squares that are referred to in patterns like mine as HST squares (bottom left) and QST squares (bottom right).

Acronym #3: RST – Right Sides Together. This one is used a lot in patterns and books. Whether you are piecing squares or strips together, you may see “RST” which refers to placing the pieces with the right sides of the fabric facing each other so you can sew a seam.

You’ll also see RST when making HSTs and QSTs. Those require starting with squares of fabric right sides together (RST).

So those above are some of the most common acronyms I use in my patterns. Now here’s a few you might find when you are reading a piece in a quilting magazine. If you run across these in your reading, now you know what they mean. A few serious and a few funny…

• SA – Seam Allowance: Referring to the size of the seam required for the project.
• FQ – Fat quarter of fabric with usually measures 18 x 22″.
• QAL – Quilt Along: Usually referring to weekly lessons from a designer for one of their patterns.
• BOM – Block of the Month: I do one of these! You usually get a pattern for a block each month then have a quilt top at the end of the year.
• FMQ – Free motion quilting, generally done on a domestic machine on smaller projects.
• LAQ – Long Arm Quilting
• LQS – Local Quilt Shop: If you have one… definitely go there to pick out fabric and get advice!

Here’s some amusing ones I think we all know (along with some really silly ones!):

• WIP – Work in Progress: We all have a lot of these…!
• PHd – Projects Half Done: … and these…
• UFO – Unfinished Object: …. and definitely these! This is one that I’m too familiar with! I have a few too many of these UFOs stacked on a shelf in a cupboard, waiting for inspiration to strike.
• FART –  Fabric Accumulation Road Trip. I do this way too often!
• SABLE – Stash Accumulation Beyond Life Expectancy
• SQUID – Sewing a Quilt Until I Die
• WOMBAT – Waste of Money, Batting and Time.

And finally one of the funniest and my favorite:

• TGIF – It’s other meaning: THANK GOD IT’S FINISHED!

Quilt Guild Games

Bonus I’m throwing in this week. Quilt guild games! If you are the program chair for your guild and are looking for some fun activities, here are a few that I have found while searching on the internet.

• Quilt Bingo

Get some Bingo cards. Quilters will “pay” a fat quarter or a certain amount of 2 1/2 x WOF strips (you decide) for bingo cards. Those go into the pot. The winner of the game gets the fabric in the pot! You can actually come up with ideas on “designs” on the card that are needed to win a game. Like checkerboard, four-patch or maybe a heart. Here’s a Bingo card I created for an example of terms to use in your game:

I created this card on a free Bingo card site. Use traditional bingo numbers to draw, just associate the terms you’ve chosen with a number. Obviously your cards would have to be printed with the terms randomly on each card. If you don’t want to create your own cards, simply use traditional Bingo cards and play it normally, with the “entrance fee” still being the fabric for the pot.

• Quilter’s Exchange

You can set this up as an exchange of anything quilt related. Fabrics, quilting tools, patterns and even UFOs. Have quilters bring in any of the above items they don’t want anymore. Display each person’s pile on a table with a cup or a basket in front. Then quilters purchase tickets with numbers, the kind that can be torn in two, for .25 a piece. One piece of the ticket goes to the quilter to put into the basket in front of the pile they want and the other piece goes in a container where numbers will be drawn from. Once everyone has “spent” their tickets, the drawing begins and the winners get some new fabrics, tools or patterns! This serves as a small fundraiser for your guild too.

• Thimble Toss

A silly, but fun game. Get a few plastic buckets and some thimbles (like these below from Amazon):

Set up two buckets and have two guild members toss thimbles into the buckets within a time period that you choose. At the end of that time, the quilter with the most thimbles in the bucket is the winner! You can have prizes like fat quarters, needle threaders, needles or other inexpensive quilter’s notions. You can even set it up as a bracket like tournament (like NCAA basketball!) and have a grand prize winner at the end who perhaps gets a gift certificate to your local quilt shop.

• Quilter’s Wheel of Fortune

This can be a team game if you have a large group. Come up with quilting terms or phrases. On a white board or a chalk board, draw out the lines for your term or phrase. Each team has a turn to guess letters. As they are filled in, the person or team can only guess the puzzle after they give you their letter. The team that guesses the puzzle are the winners and score points. The team with the most points at the end are the winners. 

That’s it for this week. I hope you enjoyed this post and learned a few new acronyms, especially the funny ones. Have fun playing some of these games too. See you next week!

Happy Quilting!
Deanne