Peach and rust colored quilt made from Spoonflower's Fill-A-Yard
Featured Collection: Rainbow Cheater Quilt

When is a yard more than a yard? When it’s made with Fill-A-Yard®! Spoonflower has revolutionized the way you replenish your fabric stash and today we’re sharing everything you need to know (hacks included!) about this helpful tool for getting just the amounts of fabric you need. 

Featured Collection: Quilting

What is Fill-A-Yard®?

Fill-A-Yard® is a resource on Spoonflower that allows you to print more than one design on a yard of fabric. Fill-A-Yard® is a great tool to use for quilting, completing projects that require two or more designs under a yard each, or ordering swatches of several designs.

Gathering Designs for Fill-A-Yard®

It’s important to note that all Fill-A-Yard® projects will require you to create a collection or work from an existing collection in the Marketplace. This collection can feature your own designs or designs from any independent artist in the Marketplace. Mix-and-match if you’d like. You can also search a specific theme by collections, find your favorite Design Challenge winners featured in weekly collections through the Spoonflower account, or shop featured collections in the Spoonflower Magazine.

Tell Me More About Fill-A-Yard®

Need more information about how to use Fill-A-Yard®? Check out our Help Center’s Fill-A-Yard Guide.

Coordinating Design Tip

Easily find coordinating designs from one designer by shopping from the Featured In section on their design page.

Design Search Tips

For even more tips on searching designs in the Marketplace, don’t miss these five go-to tips from quilter Lorna Slessor.

Ways To Get the Most Out of Spoonflower’s Fill-A-Yard®

Now that you know a little bit more about creating collections for Fill-A-Yard, it’s time to get filling!

Proofing Your Design on a Budget

If you want to proof your own designs or see how your favorite designs from the Marketplace will look together, choose our Fill-A-Yard® Cheater Quilt Template, which gives you the best bang for your buck. Since these squares are 6 x 6”, you can sample up to 42 designs on our 1 Yard Cheater Quilt for as low as $18.50–that’s just 44¢ per design! Once you receive your cheater quilt you will have the ability to make all of your own sampled designs available for sale in your Spoonflower shop. 

Design Tip

You can mix and match your private designs with Marketplace designs when using any Fill-A-Yard template.

Seamlessly Mixing and Matching Colorways

Did you know the same design (in scale and orientation) in a different colorway will repeat seamlessly when used in a Fill-A-Yard® project? For example, if we fill the 1 Yard Cheater Quilt template with the designs Luna Moth – Gold on Dark Teal and Luna Moth – Gold on Pink from littlearrowdesign’s  Luna Moth collection, the moths will repeat seamlessly across the cheater quilt template because they are the same design (same scale and orientation) even though they are different colorways. 

Template Tip

To fill a block on your template, first click on the design from your collection on the right side and then click on the block you want to fill.

Thinking Outside the (6″) Box

One of our favorite Fill-A-Yard® hacks is using either of the cheater quilt templates for projects other than a cheater quilt! If you only need a small amount of fabric but need a variety of designs, the 6” or 9″ blocks can be filled with the same design consecutively to create larger fabric swatches that aren’t traditionally offered on Spoonflower. If the original design is seamless, it will repeat seamlessly across each box. We recommend measuring your pattern pieces first to determine how you should fill your cheater quilt template.

When Spoonflower team member Meredith was making four fox plushies featured in the book Handmade Animals Dolls, she used the 1 Yard Cheater Quilt Template to order just the right amount of fabric she needed for each pattern piece by filling nine squares (3×3) with the same design. 

Would you believe us if we told you this Twisted Ribbons quilt from Suzy Quilts was made using the 2 Yard Cheater Quilt Template? See how Suzy did it here!

Getting Even More Creative With Your Projects

If you want to color-block a swimsuit, make it reversible or get two small bikinis out of one yard, try out the Fill-A-Yard split yard template. Create your collection, choose the horizontal split yard template and Sport Lycra as your fabric option, select the designs you want printed and then fill that yard!

Check out these other projects that use Fill-A-Yard® to get more out of a yard.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you Fill-A-Yard® on Spoonflower? 
1. Find or create a collection of your desired Spoonflower designs for a certain project.
2. Choose your template. You can fill a yard with two designs or fill a project with up to 48 designs, depending on the layout.
3. Arrange your designs the way you’d like them to appear when printed.
Find more information on the Fill-A-Yard® page.
How do you save money using Fill-A-Yard® on Spoonflower? 
You can save money using Spoonflower’s Fill-A-Yard® when wanting to purchase fabric swatches or measurements of fabric that are less than a yard.
What type of fabric is used in Fill-A-Yard®?
The fabric options available for each template will depend on the one you selected. Some templates do have limitations for the fabric type that can be used due to the printable width and template size. Find more information on the Fill-A-Yard® Help Center page.

Want To See Fill-A-Yard® in Action?

Now that we’ve shared some of our best Fill-A-Yard® tips, give it a try! Fabric napkins are both good for your wallet and the environment. Create your set using a design collection, the Dinner Napkins Fill-A-Project® template, and your sewing machine. Complete your tablescape with this project.