French braid pattern requirements
 

I am going to make a king size quilt in the French braid pattern. I actually don't have a pattern. I really don't need one except to figure out how much fabric I will need. I would appreciate as much help as possible.

Thanks

The French braid pattern I made was out of a whole lot of scraps. It would depend on the width of your strips.

You could find a pattern the right size to get an idea for how much fabric is needed then add an extra 1/4-1/2 yard.

I ear marked this a few yrs ago because I love how they used the homespun to do it. At the end it gives size for a double queen, that might have. Its a great tutorial and has been actively going for many yrs now. So easy to understand. Love the F. Braid she did

http://keepyouinstitches.blogspot.co...-tutorial.html

Just keep adding strips until it is long enough and then keep adding rows until it is wide enough. I always buy 7 yards if I plan on using it for a king size backing so I check to be sure I have at least 7 yards of all fabric combined before making a king top with no fabric requirement known.

WoW! I like this. I have a ton of homespun at home.... I do love homespun.... but haven't known what I wanted to do with it. This may be it. Thanks for the suggestion.

I used 2 jelly rolls for mine it fits a double bed.

Jelly Rolls and charm packs are what I used to make the French Braid. But I use pre cuts more then yardage as much as possible.

There are so many unknowns here... is it going to be scrappy, or a fixed set of fabrics? How many fabrics if a set? How wide are the strips going to be? How wide are the braids going to be? Are there separator strips, and if so how wide and what are they going to be made of? How big is king size? Is there going to be a border around the braid section? It's almost impossible to answer the original question with anything meaningful.

In general, say that your king size quilt is going to be 110x110. That's 12,100 square inches, or almost 8 1/2 yards of 40" wide fabric. But you have to account for seams. If your strips are going to be 2" wide finished (2.5" wide unfinished) and 6" long finished (6.5" unfinished) and if you assume that most of your quilt will be made up of the strips, that means you're using 2.5"x6.5"= 16.25 square inches of fabric to cover 2"x6"=12 square inches of your quilt surface, so you need to increase the 8.5 yards up by a factor of 16.25/12. (8.5 * 16.25/12 = 11.5 yards).

So my guess would be that you'll need around 11.5 yards of fabric, give or take, with all the unknowns factoring in to make it more or less. If you're not going scrappy you will probably need more total, since there will probably be some fabric wasted on each cut.

Not much help, huh?

Dunster you were a lot of help. Thanks