Well, if you have 3" strips and they finish at 2.5 and 2" strips and they finish at 1.5, you have 1.5 + 1.5+ 2.5 = 5.5, so if you cut your focus fabric at 6" square you'd be alright, although your quilt would be smaller.

Personally, I use cut an 8" focus fabric (7.5" finished) and then cut 2.5, 2.5, and 4 to get 2 + 2+ 3.5 and a finished 7.5" block. Eight blocks across is 60" and ten down is 75" or throw on one more row for 82.5".

I find it gets done faster with bigger blocks, but that's just my way :thumbup:

Oksewglad's blocks will finish at 5.5", not 6"

I just tried a test block with 2" - 3" - 2" and it came out to a perfect 6" block. Try it!

Did you go to the site where the original pattern was posted. It just might help you with the confusion.

http://www.quiltmaker.com/patterns/d...html?idx=5185_

Your three strip set needs to be the SAME width as what size you cut your square. I have made this quilt so many times, I think I could make one with my eyes close. Once you get your strips sewn and cut, all you have to do is lay out the pattern and start sewing the rows.

yes, the sewn block is 6", but it makes a 5.5 'finished' block when sewn in the quilt.

But if I understand this correctly - and believe me I am wrong quite often - the focus fabric block is 6" unfinished and 5.5" after sewn with strip - as will the strip block be 6" unfinished and 5.5 after sewn in quilt.

I may be doing something wrong but I cut a 6" scrap piece of focus fabric and then sewed 3 strips - 2 - 3 - 2 together and they fit perfectly together. Yes, the block will come out 5.5 - but that is with the 2 - 3 - 2 strips.

Originally you said you wanted a 6" block. You meant 6" unfinished, but when talking about blocks it's customary to (usually) state the finished size, so that's what Nancy thought you meant. You and she are talking apples and oranges.

Ok, Wilferg. What is your yardage for the 8" block quilt? What size does it turn out? I like larger blocks too. Faster quilts, more quilts made.

Beautiful colors!

And about the math- I think of myself as pretty good with figures, but debits and credits and percentage profits or ratios are one thing - GEOMETRY!!! is another animal entirely. I do it the math way, then I check it with graph paper and an architect's rule just to be sure.

With finished blocks of 7.5", 8 blocks wide is 60" and 11 blocks down is 82.5. I actually like to use odd numbers, so I'd probably go 7 blocks by 9 for a lap quilt, which would be 52.5" x 72.5".

If the total number of blocks is 88, though, for the bigger size, I'd cut 8" x wof and then cut 8" blocks, getting 5 blocks per width of fabric. I would need 44 blocks total, so it would take nine rows, or 72", to yield 45 blocks (one extra). For the strips, you would need nine strips of the first color, nine of the second color, nine of the third color, stitched together along the width of fabric and then cut into 8" blocks, giving you 5 per width of fabric. Color 1 at 2.5", and you need 9 strips, is a total of 22.5" (or 24" to be safe), color 2 at 4" for 9 strips would be 36", and color 3 would be same as 1, another 22.5".

I hope that helps? If you keep in mind that with either the focus fabric or the strip sets, you'll get five 8" blocks out of a width of fabric, you can go from there. If you wanted five blocks across and five down for a baby blanket (so 25 blocks), you'd need 12 of the focus and 13 of the strips, or vice versa, depending on which fabric you wanted to be the odd one. You'd still need three strips of each fabric, which would give you 15 blocks (five from each strip, three strips) so you'd have a few extra blocks of each.