Tip: Create Your Own Pattern and Calculate Fabric Requirements
By Karen Childress
My guestroom has always doubled as an exercise room, but in my current home that bedroom is a tad small. A daybed was the answer. When I got ready to make the quilt, however, I realized it needed to be sort of an unusual size. None of the patterns in the shop quite fit the bill, so I created my own. I knew I wanted something simple, and came up with 6-inch nine-patches alternating with 6-inch solid blocks, then put 1-inch sashing and cornerstones between the blocks. Easy peasey.
The only tricky part was figuring out how much fabric I needed. Here's the formula in case you want to try this at home.
Once you have your quilt top design sketched out, count the number of pieces for each fabric, determine the size of each one, and then think in terms of how many strips (width of fabric - WOF) you need.
For example, if you need (56) 6 1/2 inch squares you can get (6) 6 1/2 inch squares out of one 42" WOF strip (42 divided by 6.5). Then divide 56 by 6 and that tells you that you need 9.33 6 1/2 wide strips of fabric to cut the 56 squares (round up to ten of course). Ten strips times 6 1/2 inches is 65 inches of fabric. Divide that by 36 and you now know you need 1.8 yards of fabric. When designing your own quilt, it's wise to round up a little when buying fabric. In this example, 1 7/8 yards would be enough, but I'd recommend getting 2 or even 2 1/4 just to be on the safe side.
