Iceblossom

I'm a prewasher but not a pre/post measurer. Sometimes I wish I was!

Between shrinkage and manufacturing issues, I only plan on 40" of usable fabric in a strip any more. I've noticed that they are starting to put on better/truer measurements on bolts than 44/45" that was the standard measurement. Around Y2K I did a lot of fabric swapping, we used pre-washed fabric and made 10" squares and sometimes we all had issues being able to get our squares cut.

I tried to get people riled up some 20 years ago about the discrepancy between the 44/45" inch listed and the actual sizes even pre-washed. The mills/manufacturers know they are skimping on the measurement, they get all sorts of extra yards of length when you short it 2" along the width. You have to register the printing process, you know the size of your print area. I wrote letters to US and State departments of weights and measures, posted on line. Just couldn't get any traction. Quilt fabric is a billions with a B industry, and they are cheating you just as surely as shorting you a cup per gallon of gasoline and charging you for a full gallon.

I do most of my initial sewing as strip piecing and it makes a big difference on whether or not I can get my count. In my current project I needed 42" and I have that exactly! Maybe 2 threads difference other than the very unusable selvedges. That's a little too close for comfort and I had extra fabric so I cut extra strips but that meant with 30 blocks I could only fit in 3 comfortably instead of 4, so had to cut 10 strips instead of 8.

Should have measured first or at least cut one test strip instead of all 6. Would have done better fabric-wise to cut a 10.5" strip of fabric and then cut the 2.5" widths from that, less waste.