need help enlarging a pattern
 

HI everyone,

I am working on a quilt for my daughter for her upcoming wedding. They are getting married in October, so my time is limited. I am using the Timberline pattern from McCall's quilting October 1997. I wish I had a scanner so I could take a picture of the quilt so you could see what it looks like. The original pattern is 56 1/2" x 68 1/2". I am making this to fit on a queen size bed, so I need it 88" x 90". It is made up of a Sawtooth variation and a Star in a Star pattern. It has me make 6 of each. I figured to get the size I need, I need 21 of each of the blocks. Do I just times what it tells me to buy originally by 4 (gives me enough to make 24 blocks which I will use for some pillow shams), and will that give me enough for the blocks?

I can figure out what I need for the borders as I am enlarging them a bit, but I can picture those in my mind.

I don't want to buy a ton of extra fabric, as money is a bit tight right now. I hope someone can answer me soon as I was hoping to be able to take them shopping tomorrow night to choose their fabric.

Thanks

In general, yes, buying 4 times as much fabric should allow you to make 4 times as many blocks. Actually, it might be more fabric than you need because with uncut fabric you may be able to make a little better use of the yardage, plus magazines are often generous with their estimates. However, I would still get 4 times as much as you certainly don't want to run out at the very end!

you are not quite doubling the size. I can't see why that would take four times the amount of fabric recommended.

Texan, you are forgetting that when you make something twice a long and twice as wide you are ending up with 4 times the surface area.

But she is not doubling the length and width. Her surface area is just about doubling. The original quilt is 3870 square inches, the bigger one is 7920.

Wow, that sounds huge!!

Oops. The original pattern is 6 blocks *each* of two different blocks, making 12 blocks. If you need 24 blocks to get the size you want, then you need to buy 2 times as much fabric, not 4 times!

7920/3871 =2.05

So the area is just a bit more than doubled. If you purchased 2.5 times of the original amount suggested, you should have ample yardage.

You could probably get by with 2.25 times the original amount. I would hesitate to only double the amount - it would not allow for shrinkage, wonkiness, or cutting errors.

You could also enlarge the blocks to make the bigger size. About 1.5 times bigger would make it plenty large. A little smaller would work, too.