Choose a Quilt Design
You'll need to make several decisions before you can calculate yardage:How large must the quilt be to drape the bed or to use as you've planned?
- If you need help with quilt size, refer to my standard mattress dimensions document. Decide how much of the quilt top will be made up of quilt blocks, borders and/or sashing. Make a rough sketch on paper or use computer software to draw the quilt.
Choose a Block Size
What quilt block size will you use? How many blocks will it take across and down to fill the space required for the quilt? For instance, for a quilt that measures about 60" x 80", six 10" blocks across and eight 10" blocks up and down will fill the space -- or 6 times 8 equals 48 blocks.Be sure to allow for borders if you plan to use them, and decide if borders will be cut along the fabric's straight grain or crosswise grain.
Will blocks be straight set or placed on-point? Multiply the block's finished size by 1.41 to determine the width an on-point block will occupy in the quilt.
Will you use plain setting triangles for on-point quilts? You can piece partial-blocks to use as setting components, otherwise you'll need two types of triangles that are cut differently. (See Setting Triangle Basics.
Decimal to Fraction Conversions
A conversion chart is handy for yardage calculations.
- .0625 = 1/16
- .125 = 1/8
- .1875 = 3/16
- .25 = 1/4
- .3125 = 5/16
- .333 = 1/3 yard
- .375 = 3/8
- .4375 = 7/16
- .5 = 1/2
- .5625 = 9/16
- .625 = 5/8
- .666 = 2/3
- .6875 = 11/16
- .75 = 3/4
- .8125 = 13/16
- .875 = 7/8
- .9375 = 15/16
