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  • Welcome to PreQuilt
    • Hello, we're PreQuilt!
    • About this Help Guide
      • Glossary
    • FREE PreQuilt Course
  • PREQUILT 101
    • All About Fabric
      • Solid Fabric Swatches
      • Printed Fabric Swatches
        • Printed Fabric // FAQs
        • Use Preloaded Fabric Collections
        • Find Printed Fabric Swatches
        • Import Printed Fabric Swatches
        • Edit Printed Fabric Swatches
        • Organize Printed Fabric Swatches
        • Use Printed Fabric Swatches
      • Fabric Links
        • Manage Fabric Links
        • Use Fabric Links
      • Static Fabrics
        • Use a Static Fabric
        • Fix a Static Fabric
      • Fussy Cutting
        • Repeating Fussy Cutting
        • One Off Fussy Cutting
        • Pattern Matching Fussy Cutting
    • Fabric Calculator
      • Do's & Don'ts
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        • Overview
        • Quilt Blocks
        • Quilt Top
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        • Binding Fabric
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        • Fix: Shape is Too Big
        • Fix: Phantom Shape
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    • Build a Block Unit for Auto Recognition
      • Rectangular Units
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          • QST: 4 Different Fabrics
          • QST: Hourglass or Bowtie
          • QST: Hourglass Variation
          • Split QST
        • Triangle in a Square (Tri Rec)
      • Curved Units
        • Circles
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          • Traditional Drunkard's Path
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    • All About Quilt Blocks
      • Create a Traditional Quilt Block
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      • First PreQuilt Quilt
        • 01 Creating a Quilt Grid
        • 02 Creating Quilt Blocks
        • 03 Selecting Quilt Colors
        • 04 Using Blocks in Quilt
        • 05 Finessing Your Quilt
        • 06 Adding Sashing
        • 07 Adding Borders
        • 08 Adding Binding
        • 09 Using Printed Fabric
        • 10 Downloading Quilt Map
      • Panel Quilts
        • 01 Import Fabric Panel
        • 02 Panel Quilt Math
        • 03 Panel Quilt Grid
        • 04 Merge Cells
        • 05 Insert Panel
        • 06 Finish Quilt
      • Orphan Block Quilts
        • 01 Photograph Your Blocks
        • 02 Import Blocks into PreQuilt
        • 03 Use Blocks in Quilt
        • 04 Random Play
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        • Lone Star Starter Quilt
  • PREQUILT FEATURES
    • Using Digital Coloring Pages
      • Finding a Digital Coloring Page
      • Changing Solid Fabrics in Coloring Pages
      • Finding a Different Color Card in Coloring Pages
      • Search for a Specific Fabric in Coloring Pages
      • Using a Printed Fabric Swatch in Coloring Pages
      • Save Digital Coloring Page to Account
      • Download Image of Digital Coloring Page
    • Download Quilt Info
      • Quilt Image (JPG)
      • Fabric & Block Information
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    • Randomization
      • Block Randomization
        • Relative Randomization
          • Relatively Equal Randomization
          • Relatively Unequal Randomization
        • Absolute Randomization
      • Color Randomizer
      • Printed Fabrics Randomizer
    • Tracer
      • Tracer for Quilt Top
      • Tracer for Quilt Block
    • Share Your Quilt
  • MARKET PLAN ONLY
    • Designer Quilt Coloring Pages
      • Create Coloring Pages
      • Digital Coloring Pages Locations
      • Manage Public Coloring Pages
      • Organize Coloring Pages (Folders)
      • Private Coloring Pages
  • FIXES // FAQs
    • Tips & How-to's for Fixing Things
      • Fix a Thumbnail Image
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On this page
  • 01 | Solid Fabric Swatches
  • 02 | Printed Fabric Swatches
  • 03 | Fabric Links (formerly Color Tags)
  • 04 | Static Fabrics
  • 05 | Fussy Cutting
  1. PREQUILT 101

All About Fabric

PreviousFREE PreQuilt CourseNextSolid Fabric Swatches

Last updated 8 months ago

In PreQuilt, there are two different types of fabrics:

  1. Solid Fabric Swatches

  2. Printed Fabric Swatches

And your fabric swatches can be used dynamically or statically as:

  1. Fabric Links (dynamic use)

  2. Static Fabrics (static use)

What are the differences? Why so many options?!? Let's define them and please keep in mind we have separate and extensive Help Guides for each.


01 | Solid Fabric Swatches

Solid fabric swatches were the first digital fabric swatches we had in PreQuilt and are based on the color cards from the major solid fabric manufacturers like Robert Kaufman's Kona fabrics or Free Spirit's Designer Essential Solids. We were fortunate to have been invited to use some open source resources shared by quilters like as a starting point.

We now have the solid color cards digitized and preloaded in PreQuilt for almost all the major fabric manufacturers.

  • Art Gallery Fabrics - Pure Elements Solids

  • American Made - Cotton Solids

  • Andover - Century Solids

  • Free Spirit - Designer Essential Solids

  • Michael Miller - Cotton Couture

  • Moda - Bella Solids

  • Northcott - ColorWorks

  • Paintbrush Studio - Painter's Palette Solids

  • Robert Kaufman - Kona Solids

  • RJR - Cotton Supremes

  • Riley Blake - Confetti Cottons

  • Tilda - Solids

  • Windham - Ruby + Bee

We do our best to keep these up to date, but if you find we're missing something, please feel free to email us and we'll happily update it.

For the extensive Help Guide on Solid Fabric Swatches, click on the link below:


02 | Printed Fabric Swatches

Printed fabric swatches (also referred to as digital fabric swatches) are digital versions of printed fabric. They are usually square JPG images and often times they will have a ruler along the bottom to denote the width of the swatch.

PreQuilt is able to use digital fabric swatches for your printed fabric to preview your quilt ideas. If the swatch provided is smaller than the quilt piece the fabric swatch is placed in, the digital swatch will be tiled to fill the space. You are also able to reposition and rotate your digital fabric swatch as well.

In a few steps, you can import a digital fabric swatch into PreQuilt and link it to a patchwork piece in your quilt and quickly see what it'd look like.

For the extensive Help Guide on Printed Fabric Swatches, click on the link below:


03 | Fabric Links (formerly Color Tags)

PreQuilt developed Fabric Links (formerly Color Tags) as a way to connect a fabric swatch to a quilt block piece or part of a quilt. Fabric links can be connected to both solid color swatches and printed fabric swatches.

A Fabric Link is used to connect a particular fabric swatch to a particular quilt block piece. So when the fabric swatch used by a Fabric Link is changed (from a solid to another solid or from a solid to a printed fabric swatch or from a printed fabric swatch to another printed fabric swatch), everything that is using that Fabric Link will also change and be updated automatically.

In the example below, the fabric swatch used by Fabric Link A was changed from Kona black to Kona bright pink. The change was done once and then automatically pushed to all pieces that were connected and using Fabric Link A.

For the extensive Help Guide on Fabric Links, click on the link below:


04 | Static Fabrics

A Static Fabric in PreQuilt is a fabric that is not used in a Fabric Link. A Static Fabric is used for a particular block piece and remains fixed. The block piece that uses this fabric will not dynamically be updated or changed when features like the Color Randomizer is used.

The benefit of using a Static Fabric is that you do not need to create Fabric Links for fabrics you know you will not want to change. One example could be a panel quilt, where the panel is static and won't be effected by any dynamic changes.

If you're ever finding that a the fabric used in a quilt is not changing when you're expecting it to (like when using the color randomizer or when changing a Fabric Link), it probably is because that block piece is using a static fabric. The simple fix is to edit the quilt block and link the block piece to the desired Fabric Link.

For the extensive Help Guide on Static Fabrics, click on the link below:


05 | Fussy Cutting

Fussy Cutting is a term that is used to describe the targeted selection and cutting from fabric of a particular image. And in quilting, these selectively cut out pieces of fabric are then either pieced together by hand (typically English Paper Piecing) or by machine to create visually stunning quilt blocks.

One of the best by-products of our newest Fabric features (launched October 2023) is that you can now visualize precision and seamless pattern matched fussy cut blocks in PreQuilt.

For the extensive Help Guide on Fussy Cutting, click on the link below:

Steph Skardal
Solid Fabric Swatches
Printed Fabric Swatches
Fabric Links
Static Fabrics
Fussy Cutting
Digital printed fabric swatch without ruler
Digital printed fabric swatch with ruler
Fabric Link A is currently black
Fabric Link A has been changed to pink