Dearest Maniac Quilter,
Which part of the post in which I described my quilting experience was hogwash? I took a few classes in the early 80s, before rotary cutters, rulers and mats were mainstream. There was definitely a culture that valued precision and mathamatical qualities of piecing at that time-- using templates and super fine point pencils and scissors and being very careful in the cutting and marking of peices. That's not hogwash-- it's just how quilters operated at that time. If the original poster is using patterns and directions that hearken from that time, or are written by a designer who uses that mindset, that's why there are a lot of unusual cutting sizes.

I'm certainly not advocating for a return to those days. Did your reading of my post lead you to believe I was?

RST

I have had a whole bunch of squares to make that were 3-7/8" square. It all works -----use the directions! Edie

I too remember a time when quilters used templates and scissors, and made precision cuts to the size needed, and I don't think they would have considered another way, at least the few I knew wouldn't. There was no cutting bigger and trimming down, and not a lot of short cuts. Trimming down meant waste, and they were too frugal to waste, and so they didn't. The woman who got me interested in quilting, cut precisely with her scissors, and pieced and quilted by hand, and that seemed to be the quilting "law" at the time. I am thankful for her tutelage, and her shared templates, because I learned so much from her, and I appreciate that tradition, but am grateful for rotary cutters and shorter versions of quilt block instructions.

I have to admit that when I took classes back in the early 70's, we made everything to size, we didn't even think of doing it a little larger and trimming it back to size. That said, I much prefer the way we do it now. cut it a little larger, sew it together and cut to the correct size. Much less frustrating.

I have patterns where I am told to cut a border piece to something like 62-3/8 inches.

I am fairly accurate with my piecing, but I will ALWAYS cut my border pieces an inch or two longer than the pattern says. ( yes, I do measeure the center in several places, but I still prefer to have a bit of wiggle roon on a longer length.

Times like this I love metric!

Bearisgray ---

I remember that too.

Or the binding technique where you measured your quilt carefully, to the 1/8th inch, cut your binding to the precise length, then stitched it into a loop with all the joins mitered, and if you were doing it right, it all fit. That expectation translated to a lot of UFOs for me.

RST

If the center of block is going "on point," it will have some strange measurements. Keep in mind that when you are making HST units, the seam allowance addition is 7/8". Like above, I would play with a paper mock-up. Cut the pieces out (all of them) at the size they call for. Fold over the seam allowances & see how well they play together.

Theoretically, that should work. If the binding was cut on the bias, that would allow for a little stretch.

I don' t recall a pattern like that, but ilearned along time ago to wait until I get go the borders to cut them.

The Aphrodite quilt (was in the winter 2013 Quilt Trends) I'm working on right now has all manner of weird measurements, but a large portion of the quilt is triangles and on point.

I've just taken to marking my ruler at those measurements and ignoring the lines on the ruler other than for checking "straight"