Interesting experience at a fabric store I had never been to before. I found some fabric that I wanted to use in a border strip around my Easy Street quilt and I brought the top with me, told the gal the dimensions, told her I wanted a two inch finished strip all the way around. Pretty clear right? She is trying to do the math and getting herself all worked up, Im thinking, you work in a store for quilters and you cant do basic math? Not even a calculator on the counter for her. I told her to hold up, I have a calculator on my phone. Quilt is 96 x 96 so you take 96 x 4 sides, that gives you the total number of inches. (96 x 96 = 384) Then you divide that by the width of the fabric minus the selvage, which in this instance was 42 inches. You do that because you are going to cut your strips across the width of the fabric and piece them together. (384/4 = 9.6) Now I told her that I wanted a 2 inch finished strip. I use a 1/4 inch seam allowance which means that I have to add a 1/4 inch seam to both sides of my strip making it 2.5 inches. I know that I need 9.6 of those. (9.6 x 2.5 = 24) I need 24 inches of fabric for exactly the amount to make this border. Now, we all know that fabric sometimes is not wound on the bolt evenly and depending on the person cutting, you may or may not get a piece of fabric that is perfectly even to start your cutting. I always give myself a 1/4 yard clearance (hey, if its all good, it goes in my stash and who knows I might make a mistake, it has been known to happen...lol) So 1/4 yard equals 9 inches. (9+24+33) close enough, I told her to give me a yard. She was blown out that I could figure that out. And I did it out loud, graciously. Teach your little ones how to quilt, its all about math. Women arent bad at math, they just arent taught. End of my sermon for today...LOL. Whew that was a bit of a rant. (border fabrics I picked are Focus II by Paintbrush Studio and Basicgrey/Grunge for Moda Fabrics)
Posted on: Tue, 29 Jul 2014 13:01:03 +0000