How to Resize FPP Templates
Have you ever fallen in love with a quilt block pattern but wished it were just a smidge bigger or smaller to fit your project? Don’t let the size hold you back! I’m here to walk you through the simple steps to adjust those quilt block templates to fit your creative vision. Whether you want a bold statement piece or a charming miniature block, resizing is easier than you think.
Although many of my patterns come in multiple sizes, they may still not be the perfect size for your project.
The easiest way to reduce the block size is to trim the block and remove some background space or if you want to increase the block size, you could add a border.
Sometimes, neither of these options is appropriate.
If you don’t want to change the look of the block, you can adjust the "scale" of the design, which means changing the printing percentage.
Foundation paper pieced patterns can be purchased here.
A few things to keep in mind:
- Foundation paper piecing templates often come with a quarter inch seam allowance. When you enlarge or reduce your templates, the seam allowances will also be reduced and enlarged. You will need to redraw new quarter inch seam allowances on your resized templates.
- When reducing the size, smaller pieces can get tricky to handle
- When enlarging, designs might not fit on a standard printer page. You may need to cut the template into smaller sections or print it at a copy shop on larger paper.
The Resizing Chart
Download the handy resizing chart by completing this form.
How to Use the Chart
Example:
Let’s say you have a 6" x 6" block, but you want it to finish at 10" x 10”.
- Find 6" in the Original Block Size column.
- Find 10" in the New Block Size row.
- Look where the row and column intersect—it’ll say 167 %.
Now you know to print at 167% to get your 10" x 10" block.
In general, any enlargement will have a percentage greater than 100%.
Any reduction, will have a percentage smaller than 100%.
Choose custom scale in your printer’s dialogue box and enter the required percentage.
What About Rectangular Blocks?
Resizing rectangular blocks works the same way, but you’ll want to pay attention to both dimensions.
Example:
You have a 6" x 8" block, and you’d like the longest side to measure 12".
- Find 8" in the Original Block Size column and 12" in the New Block Size row. The intersection shows 150%.
- Now, check how the shorter side will resize by looking in the 6" row for 150%. It’ll show 9".
So, printing at 150% will give you a block that’s 9" x 12". Perfectly proportioned and ready to go!
How to print templates that are larger than standard print paper
Sometimes you may want to print a template that is larger than the standard print paper eg. Letter size of A4 paper.
Here is a screen shot of my printer settings. I chose the "poster" sizing. This will tile the template over several pages.
So in this example, I am increasing a 6 inch template to 12 inch. So I am scaling at 200%.
The overlap has defaulted to 0.005inch, which is practically negligible. This is the amount that the templates will overlap. I left it like this so there is no overlap. This is just a personal preference.
When I print my templates, it printed over 6 pages to be tiled.
The printer will leave a margin (the white space) because home computers generally can't print all the way to the edge.
On the left page, I trimmed off the page margin and will match the sewing lines with the page on the right (which I did not trim).
I did not overlap the lines because as stated above, I chose a setting where overlap is negligible.
After matching the sewing lines, I used a glue stick to hold the pages in place.
I used some washi tape (this is a paper based tape that can be sewn over - don't use plastic tape!) to secure the pages together.
I carried out the same process to combine all the other pages together.
Because the templates were scaled at 200%, the quarter inch seam allowance will now also be 200% times bigger but I still want it to be a quarter inch so will use a ruler to draw in the new seam allowance.
So we now have a 12 inch FPP template.
The 1 inch square of course will also be 200% bigger so will now be a 2 inch square.
Your template is now ready to use!
Something to keep in mind: For this pattern, there was only a single section. If your pattern has multiple sections, you will have to re-adjust the seam allowance for each section.
The Resizing Chart
Download the handy resizing chart by completing this form.
Foundation paper pieced patterns can be purchased here.
You may like to read
Free Foundation Paper Pieced Blocks
The Pros and Cons of Foundation Paper Piecing
Top 20 Tips for Foundation Paper Piecing
Foundation Paper Pieced Quilt Borders