Directional prints: cutting and planning

What makes a print directional

A print is directional when it has a right way up. There are two kinds:

• One way: trees, houses, animals, words. Wrong upside down, and wrong on its side.
• Two way: stripes and rows. Fine upside down, wrong on its side.

Most prints run along the selvage: the “up” of the design points along the length of the fabric, so a strip cut across the width from selvage to selvage has its print standing up across the strip. Check yours before you cut: hold the fabric up the way it came off the bolt.

What it changes, piece by piece

Rectangles

A rectangle cut from a strip across the width lies on its side: its long edge runs along the strip, and the print stands up across it. That’s right for a lying piece, like a rail. The print stands up in these lying pieces as they come off the strip. A standing rectangle has to be cut the other way, with the strip as wide as the rectangle is tall.

Triangles

A square cut once on the diagonal gives two triangles that sit differently. For one-way prints, cut half the squares corner to corner one way and half the other, so every triangle can be sewn in with its print standing.

A square cut twice on the diagonals gives four, one for each side: top, right, bottom and left. Each can only go on the side of a unit it came from. A flying goose uses one big triangle with its long edge down, so a one-way print gives only one usable goose per square:

Borders

Strips cut across the width lie with the print standing across them: right for the top and bottom borders, wrong for the sides, where the print would lie on its side. So the side borders of a one-way print are cut down the length, beside a selvage, as long as the quilt. For this quilt: 2 strips 4½″ × 60½″, down the length, beside one selvage: 2 at 60½″ for the sides.

Pieces on point

A square set on point, or a 60° diamond, can’t have its print upright: it always leans. Either accept the lean, or choose a non-directional print for those pieces.

How much more fabric

It depends entirely on the block. Here are three 56″ × 68″ quilts, with no directional prints and then with every fabric one way:

The Flying Geese quilt needs 20 7¼″ squares for its geese with a print that goes any way, and 80 with a one-way print, because only one quarter of each square points the right way. The Rail Fence’s rails lie flat as they’re cut, so it changes only in the border fabric, whose side borders are cut down the length. The Ohio Star’s quarters go on all four sides of each star, so it barely changes at all.

Planning with directional prints

• Decide before you buy: a one-way print can need a lot more yardage, as above.
• Mark the top of each fabric with a pin or a chalk arrow before you cut, and keep the arrow on every stack.
• Lay out each block before sewing it, and look. A goose upside down is easy to unpick now and hard later.
• Turned blocks turn their print too. In a layout where blocks are rotated, like a pinwheel of blocks, cut each block’s pieces for the way it will sit.