I’ve always loved Anne of Green Gables, so when Penny Rose Fabrics released an entire collection dedicated to P.E.I.’s whimsical redhead, I knew I had to make an Anne quilt. A “quilt of shining colours,” as Anne might call it.

I pawed through the bolts and narrowed it down to my eight favourites: two greens, three blues and three pinks. Most were printed with flowers (my favourite), but one had teacups (another favourite) and another was printed with delicately scripted quotes from the books.

Now, I’m often asked how to figure out how much fabric to buy when you’re making a quilt. Luckily, I’ve developed a system that’s been working well.

People who sew use a term called a “fat quarter,” which refers to a quarter-metre of fabric if you cut it into squares instead of strips. Fabric stores even sell pre-cut “fat quarters” because they’re handy for making small projects. If you were to buy a quarter-metre off a bolt, it would be a long skinny strip instead of one fat square. Make sense?

Since I was making the quilt for our guest room, which has a double bed, I knew I could get by with half a metre of each fabric — four metres of fabric, total. Since I’d cut each piece of fabric in half, it was like I was buying 16 fat quarters.

So if you want an easy formula for making a quilt that fits a double bed, either buy 16 fat quarters or eight half-metres of different fabrics. (If you only want to use four fabrics, just buy one metre of each.)

Once I’d washed and dried the fabric — always important if you’re making something that will be washed and dried in the future — I roughly cut each piece of fabric down the middle, giving me 16 fat quarters …

Continue reading in my weekly DIY column, My Handmade Home — it includes a video tutorial!