World Wide Quilting Page

Question of the Week

Question for the week of September 7, 1998:

Our question this week comes from Shirley

I am a beginning quilter and some of the patterns I like do not give you the the amount of fabric to buy to make queen & king size quilts; how do I calculate how much fabric to buy?

magzzzz2 :
all you have to do is calculate the fabric you need for one square of section of your quilt and multiply then add for borders.

Anthony in Tampa :
For those of us who are a bit more "retentive", here's an over complicated approach to do the very same
thing Gerri did, but here goes...

multiply the size numbers for the pattern you HAVE
eg., 60 x 80 = 4800

multiply the size numbers for the size you WANT
eg., 90 x 108 = 9720

divide the second number by the first to get you factor
(what you WANT divided by what you HAVE)
eg., 9720/4800 = 2.025 if the factor
(If scaling up, the factor will be greater than one, if scaling down, it will be less than one.)

Multiply each yardage component by your factor
eg., pattern calls 3.5 yds of fabric A
3.5 x 2.025 = 7.0875

Round up to the nearest 1/4 yd for 7.25 yds of fabric A
If the project has smallish pieces, seam allowances can take up substantial fabric
In those cases, I add another 1/2 yard and get 7.75 yds.

(This approach doesn't work on bargello type quilts. Those things can be 50% seam allowance.
Mischele Hart says they're one big seam allowance.)

This formula is great for scaling borders up or down to keep them proportional. If the pattern called for 6" borders,
6 x 2.025 = 12.15. Round up to 12.25 for borders of a size that are the same proportion as the original quilt.

Gerri :
I find that with most patterns it's pretty simple to calculate the amount of fabric PER BLOCK, either by dividing the total yardage by the number of blocks, or by calculating according to the pieces being cut from each fabric. Once you know how much you need of each fabric for each block it's fairly simple to increase or decrease the size of the quilt. I tend to add a little extra because, espcially with bed quilts, I like to have extra to make coordinating pillows and sometimes even curtains or table coverings. Hope this helps! Have fun!!

World Wide Quilting Page * Question of the Week