ruby2shoes

I want to make a quilt top consisting of HSTs pieced into chevrons....so, just HST's to do...simple, clean, neat. Now, am I correct, or rather is my maths correct that the smaller the chevrons, therefore the smaller the HST's therefore the more fabric I will need as I am using more blocks or rather, seams, to maintain my quilt size? By my calculations, making my top and keeping the measurement the same, out of finished 8" chevrons consisting of 4 HST blocks of 4.5 inches each, I will use almost half as much fabric as I would if I was making the finished chevrons 6" or even 7"each? Dear oh dear am I right? Am I waaaaaay off and in need of remedial arithmetic classes?

p.s. I'm blushing just thinking about the eye rolls and guffaws of mirth coming from you all!!

ManiacQuilter2

This is the reason I love having Electric Quilt 7. No more math problems. I would look to Google for information:
https://www.google.com/search?q=HSTs...utf-8&oe=utf-8

I did this design for a friend who wanted to see how to make one. You need to state what size of quilt you want including borders and then that will be the size of your HST. Remember the 7/8" you need to add to the size of the finished block size. Hope this helps.

ruby2shoes

Thanks Maniacquilter2, yep got the construction process and I have a very basic quilt design program which I use to plot my pattern and size etc but it doesn't have a fabric estimation capability; hence my scrabbling around on sheets and sheets of paper and wearing my calculator batteries to within an inch of their little lives trying to work out my fabric requirements and being gobsmacked that by my calculations I need so much extra fabric for smaller blocks to make the same size quilt.

bearisgray

You are correct in thinking that the smaller the hst's, the more fsbric uou will use For the same sized finished item.

bearisgray

You are correct in thinking that the smaller the hst's, the more fsbric uou will use For the same sized finished item.m

bearisgray

You are correct in thinking that the smaller the hst's, the more fsbric uou will use For the same sized finished item.m

GingerK

Not necessarily. It really depends on how many pieces you can get out of one strip of fabric. For example:

size of finished item: 60"x60"
size of finished HST: 4" (2 squares cut at 4 7/8" will yield 2 HSTs--round up to 5" for easier calculation)
amount of HSTs needed: 175 (60"divided by 4"=15 wide x 15 long)
amount of squares needed: 88 of each colour (one square of each colour will yield 2 HSTs)

With me so far?
If we figure that your fabric has 40" useable width, and that you are cutting 5" squares, you can get 8 squares per strip 5" strip of fabric. Because you need 88 squares, you need 11 strips of fabric (total needed divided by amount per strip). Therefore, you would need 55" of each fabric.

BUT if you made those HSTs 6" finished, you would then have to cut your squares at 7". So lets do the same math. 60"x60" divided by 6" =100 finished blocks which means you would need 50 of each colour. But you would only be able to get 5 squares out of each strip of fabric. (40 divided by 7) which means that you would need 10 strips and that would equal 70" of each colour.

It really comes down to how many squares you can cut from your useable width of fabric. Sometimes bigger is not more economical.

dunster

You and bearisgray are completely right that the more seams, the more fabric in the quilt. And Ginger is correct in pointing out that you have to consider fabric width and how you will be cutting the pieces when you calculate how much yardage to buy. However your calculation of using only half as much fabric for 8" chevrons as for 7" ones seems a bit extreme. I don't know what method you were using to calculate (whether fabric length needed, or fabric actually used in the quilt) so can't check your math. Can you show us how you came to that conclusion?

bearisgray

For an example - say you want to make a top that is 72 x 72 inches - the reason for choosing that number is that 72 is evenly divisibly by 8, 6, 4, and 2.

The area of the finished top would be 72 x 72 = 5184 square inches

THE FOLLOWING IS THEORETICAL WITH NO WASTE, NO SHRINKAGE, AND NO ALLOWANCE FOR FABRIC WIDTH - JUST SQUARE INCHES OF FABRIC NEEDED

If one wanted to make a top of 8 inch HST units -

72 divided by 8 = 9
So there would be 9 x 9 (81) HST units in a top made of 8 inch (finished size) units
Each HST would theoretically take 8.875 x 8.875 (78.77) square inches of fabric
Multiply the number of units times the number of square inches for each unit
81 x 78.77 = 6380.02 square inches

For 6 inch finished units

72/6 x 72/6 x 6.875 x 6.875 = 6806.25 square inches


for 4 inch finished units

72/4 x 72/4 x 4.875 x 4.875 = 7700.07 square inches


for 2 inch finished HST units

72/2 x 72/x x 2.875 x 2.875 = 10712.25


The process is:

A. Divide finished length by finished size
B. Divide finished width by finished size

C. Multiply A x B to get the number of units needed

D. Multiply the size of the square needed to make a HST x C - be sure to multiply length x width for the area needed.


I think my numbers are correct - but if not - please update them.

bearisgray

GingerK does have a point in that the width of the fabric will determine how many squares one can cut from a width.