How many different prints do I need?
 

I've promised to make a simple hourglass quilt for a young niece. It will be whit with pinks and Browns as hourglasses. I'm thinking I will make 5" blocks so I will need about 80 colored squares and 80 white.

If I'm to get a decent variety of colored/printed blocks, how many different ones should I buy? I will have to buy all the fabric for this so I want to make sure I get them at once.

Thanks for any advice!

You could do it with just one pink, one brown, and one white. If you want to use a variety of pink prints and brown prints, you need at least 3 of each -- and more is better so there is more variety. In general, the more variety you have in the prints the scrappier the look (and it tends to become more visually interesting).

How big will your hourglass blocks be? And how many blocks in the quilt? Because I am thinking it will be a pretty small quilt, in which case you don't need too many different fabrics. Are you thinking of buying yardage rather than charm packs or layer cakes?

1/3 yd will give you 14 - 5.5 squares. 3 diff. pinks & 3 diff. browns. It all depends on how large you are cutting your squares to start with. If you get a 1/2 yard of each you will be more than covered & would be able to do some strips from the leftovers.

have you considered buying a layer cake to make them, you could get a really nice variety like that.

This is the first thing I thought of: https://www.missouriquiltco.com/shop...ate-10-squares

It comes in charms and fat quarters, too. (And yardage)

so pretty :)

oh that's really pretty, angelia, thank you for that link!