A fabric panel can be kind of tricky or intimidating to purchase. You love it, but you don’t know if you should cut it up or not.

How do you deal with the different panels?  Do others think you are cheating if you use them and call it a quilt?

Well— I totally use and love a good fabric panel.

If you are needing something done, and like yesterday, this might the just the thing you need.

I wouldn’t think twice about using the whole panel.  I have.  If you have time to fiddle and reformat the panel in a new quilt, then go for it.  No time?  Then just give it some extra love in the quilting department and call it awesome!

The most simplest way to make a quilt with a panel is to leave it be- and just put it together in a quilt sandwich and quilt and bind.  This comes together super quick and is a great way to get a quilt done in a couple of hours instead of weeks!

Materials:

Fabric- pick it up at Connecting threads or Fat Quarter Shop

Supplies you may need:

• Rotary cutter or a new sharp blade
• Cutting Mat
• Quilt Ruler
• Sewing Machine  this brother is my favorite!
• Iron here or here
• Thread
• Bobbins
• Scissors
• Seam Ripper  not my favorite thing to do!

How to Make a Quilt with Fabric Panels

1-  Find a cute backing fabric

2- Layer your top, batting and backing

3- Quilt as desired

To make the quilt a little larger or to give your quilt top a more patchwork or pieced look- you may want to cut it up. 

Fabric panels come in a variety of options and prints. Some come with a grid layout and are actually easy to cut apart, you cut right in the center of the border around the units, so you don’t end up cutting out parts of the quilt.  

There are other panels that come with fun additions like the alphabet and stripes of fabric.  These can easily be used as a border later or part of your quilt top design.

Some panels are simple and there is nothing additional in the panel except for the blocks.  The background or sashing around the blocks can be added to or not used at all. 

Some quilt patterns don’t have any borders, but are simply a design to have fun with. 

Some options for switching things up–

1- Add a few extra borders around the whole center of the quilt panel– don’t go crazy, just a stop border and a cute outer border

2- Cut the panel fabric into pieces, add to it and then resew.

How to Make a Quilt with Fabric Panels

For this quilt, I cut the alphabet squares apart and then added sashing in between. 

Fun Projects with Quilt Panels

Another fun project you can do with panels— make felt dolls with them!

Here are some great finished quilts that panels were used for.

WANT TO REMEMBER THIS? SAVE THE HOW TO MAKE A QUILT WITH FABRIC PANELS TO YOUR FAVORITE DIY PINTEREST BOARD!

What are your tricks when using panel fabric?

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