Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Quilt Acronyms

 Christmas is the time of year when everyone is busy with their quilting, shopping etc.  I thought I would share the quilters language and get you to take a brake for a minute or two.  to take a deep breath and to put a smile on your face.




An Acronym is a word formed from the initial letters of other words (e.g., radar, laser).
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The language of quilters is quite interesting. Quilters have embraced the use of acronyms in a simply fabulous way, but the language can be somewhat confusing for non-quilters – like husbands and partners.

The first time I mentioned a fat quarter to my husband he said “darling don’t talk about your body like that, I like cuddly”. Hmmmm. Ever told a non quilter that you quilt in the ditch? They give you this sort of funny look and you can see they’re thinking – she did what in the ditch?

Acronyms fly thick and fast in the vocabulary of a quilter and I’ve taken on the task of describing to the uninitiated, what some of those funny sounding acronyms really mean. This is just a smattering of acronyms (say that fast) that I have come up with. There’s a lot more out there in webland – just Google Quilt Acronyms and be surprised!

I’ll start with the well known ones, that are simply WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get!).

FQ Fat Quarter (quilt fabric usually measuring approximately .5 yard by .5 yard)

SID Sitching in the Ditch (quilting right on the seam line)

UFO Unfinished Object. I sometimes wish my UFO’s would be taken by Martians, never to be seen again!

WIP means work in progress and I’m guessing that we all have a lot of that.






The above acronmys are the simple acronyms that most quilters use regularly. Now I’m going to take you on a journey of discovery of acronyms that are used by the wider quilting community, and they are very clever, I think.

HSY Haven’t Started Yet

PHD Project Half Done (does that makes my title, Judie Bellingham PHD.)

MGBTQ Must Get Back To Quilting

WIVSP Work in Very Slow Progress

TOAD Trashed Object Abandoned in Disgust

USO Unstarted Object

STASH Special Treasures All Secretly Hidden

SABLE Stash Accumulation Beyond Life Expectancy

FART Fabric Acquisition Road Trip ( I do that all the time!!)

TGIF Thank God It’s Friday is the usual acronym but quilters like Thank God It’s Finished.

WIWMI Wish It Would Make Itself

WWIT What Was I Thinking?

And finally WOMBAT Wast of Material, Batting and Time (This one is close to my Oz Heart!!).

As I said that’s just a small sample of the quilting acronyms out there.
So I’ll have to just dream of a FART cause I  MGBTQ .

HAPPY QUILTING EVERYONE,     HAVE A GREAT DAY!




Check my website gallery for more selections: http://janesquilting.com

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