kristakz

I assume you want to add some blocks around the 82x52 quilt you have right now. It sounds like you want rectangles along each edge, from various fabrics. You need to figure out how wide you want that border to be, and I can't help there. But to figure out the length of each rectangle, I would do this:

Take the quilt length (82") and divide by 8 - that's 10 1/4" each (finished) for 8 blocks. So cut 10 3/4" x whatever width you wanted, plus 1/2" (so if you want a 4" border, cut 10 3/4" x 4 1/2" rectangles). For the width of the quilt, 52 divided by 8 gives you 6 1/2" (finished). So cut 7" blocks (by 4 1/2" in my example, or whatever your width is). Then you will also need 4 square for the corners - 4 1/2" square, if you are using my example 4" border.

If you want the size of the blocks to be the same top and sides, it's a bit more complex. 10 1/4" blocks (finished) would be 8 blocks for each long edge, and about 5 blocks for each short edge. You'd have to fudge 3/4" on the short edges to make it fit. I'd probably add 1/4" to 3 of the side blocks ( on each side) - it would never be noticed. That still needs squares for each corner.

Now, another option I just came up with - use the 8 blocks on the long edges. Then, the short edges are now that much longer (by the width of the border you just added). If the short edges end at 61 1/2", things work out nicely. You need 6 blocks for each short edge. To make this size happen, your finished border width is 61.5-52=9.5/2=4.75".

So cut your border blocks 10 3/4" x 5 1/4". You need 8 for each long edge and 6 for each short edge - total of 28 blocks.