amethyst

Is there a way to determine how much yardage is needed for a quilt? I'm not using a pattern. I'm going off a picture of a baby quilt and making my own paper piece blocks.

I found something online that says for a king sized quilt I will need 9 yards unless the fabric has a repeating pattern. Does that sound about right? what about if there are lots of little triangles within each block? It seems like you would need more. Or when paper piecing it seems like I would need extra. Although 9 yards sounds like a lot of fabric, so I just don't know. Are there some guidelines to figure this out?

Watson

Here is a good calculator, but unless you know the actual size of your pieces, you're really just guess-timating

Calculator

Watson

Gay

I think the only way is to have a program such as Electric Quilt to draw up your ideas to the size you need, & it will tell you how much fabric. Check out Bonnie Hunters' blog and her free patterns. Her yardages for small piece quilts can amount up to 13-14 mts for a quilt around 78-80". I usually expect 12 yds for a Queen size, depending on how small the pieces will be.

https://quiltville.blogspot.com/p/free-patterns.html

quiltingshorttimer

with geometric blocks you can basically figure out the needs for it and then figure from there the number of blocks needed, plus any borders and binding. With applique you can figure the needed yardage for background and guesstimate for the applique. I am clueless about paper piecing figuring yardage and find I'm bit more "wasteful" when paper piecing. if you can get your hands on an EQ8 computer program you could draw the blocks and figure--suppose you could do that on graph paper with ruler, etc. Laborious!

dunster

I can tell you off the top of my head that 9 yards is about what you would need for the backing for a kingsize quilt. You need a lot more for the top, because the back is not pieced, while the top is. How much more you need depends on the pattern. Smaller pieces mean more fabric, because more fabric is used in seam allowances.

Kwiltr

If I don’t have a pattern, I use graph paper to draw out my project to scale. Count the number of each component, eg. how may triangles of what size, how many rectangles of what size, add your seam allowance to the finished size to get your cut size. Count on 40” width of fabric in a fabric strip cut, then take the size of one component, eg I need 30 -4” squares. If you cut a 4” strip that’s 40” width of fabric and divide it by 4”, you will get 10 - 4” squares out of one strip. So if you need 30 squares you’ll need 3 - 4” strips cut from your width of fabric assuming you want all the same colour (10 squares in one strip, 3 x 10 = 30 squares). Then do the same for all your components.

bearisgray

Remember to add seam allowances to the pieces.

it is easy for me to think: I need nine 4- inch squares to make a 12 inch finished size block.. i will need nine 4.5 inch squares.!

Jingle

Too much for me. I just crab a couple of large amount pieces and yardage and start cutting what I need.

Peckish

If you want to be precise about it, I'd chart or draw on graph paper. EQ is great for estimating, but often will over estimate, which quite honestly is fine by me because I'd rather have too much than not enough.
Depends on the block and pattern. Smaller pieces will require more seams, which will eat up yardage. On the other hand, if you have a block with just one seam, that is very easy to measure and do the math on.

Barb in Louisiana

If you can give us a link to the quilt you want to do and the size you want it to finish, we may be able to help more.