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Old 08-09-2012, 09:46 PM
  #13  
Prism99
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Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Western Wisconsin
Posts: 12,930
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Now for the challenge of cutting those strips out of the least amount of fabric.

Here's how I would calculate for the brown fabric. You need approximately this amount of length in 6.5" strips:
(2x76") + (2x74") + (2x87")+(2x95") = approximately 670" = (670/36") = 18.62 yards of fabric.
However, you can get 6 strips out of one width (42"/6.5") = 6 strips of 6.5" inches each.
So, in order to get enough length for all of the 6.5" strips, you need (670" / 6 strips per width) = 112" = 3.12 yards.
You probably want to add a little bit of length to the strips to allow you to make diagonal joins in the borders, so you probably want to add some extra fabric for that. My minimum purchase of the brown fabric would be 3.5 yards (4 yards if you are going to pre-wash and need extra in case of shrinkage).

For the white fabric, you need approximately the following total length of 4.5" strips:
(2x88") + (2x83") = 342"
You can get at least 8 strips that are 4.5" from one width of fabric:
(40"/4.5) = 8
and possibly 9 strips (42"/4.5) = 9
I would go conservative and count on 8 strips per width of fabric.
342" / 8 = 43" to get the minimum length needed of 4.5" strips
43"/36 = 1.2 yards
You need a little extra for diagonal joins, so I would purchase 1.5 yards of the white fabric (expecting some to be left over).

That's my best estimate of yardages so far.

What I would do with the yardage is first cut it all into strips of the correct width. I would join 2 widths as necessary to get enough for each border as I went, paying attention to where the joins are falling. You could probably rough-out all the borders this way, laying them out as you go, to make sure that the joins are going to fall where you want them. Once you get that done, you can measure the quilt and cut the first two border pieces to correct length (***very*** important to measure, cut and pin before sewing each border, especially multiple borders, to keep the quilt top flat and the edges unwavy), sew them on, iron seams flat, measure the quilt in the other direction, cut the next pair of border strips to length, pin and sew, etc.

Last edited by Prism99; 08-09-2012 at 09:53 PM.
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