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January 27, 2008

Estimating Yardage

One of my readers asked:

how do you estimate how much you use on a scrappy project? Using big pieces for backings or borders wouldnt be bad, but what about little pieces, say like triangles or squares you would cut out of a FQ? Are you giving it a good ole guess?

If I’m using a pattern, I just add up all the yardage it requires and that’s the figure I plug into my spread sheet.

If I’m not using a pattern, I just figure it out. It only takes a minute or two. Say I’m using a block that uses 9 – 3″ finished half square triangles and my quilt needs 12 blocks. That means I’m using 108 half square triangles (9 x 12) which means I’m using 54 – 4″ squares of one color and 54 – 4″ squares of another color which means I’m using a total of 108 – 4″ squares. I figure I can get 10 – 4″ squares per strip so this means I need 11 – 4″ strips or 44″ of fabric.

My figures may not be exact but they’re pretty darned close . . because I’m kinda goofy and have to know exactly what I’m doing. I rarely start cutting before I have written out my directions — step by step.

Hope this helps.

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