Friday, November 2, 2012

Calculations (aka Maths)

I've decided that I'm going to post, step-by-step, how my new quilt comes together.  Since I'm trying to blog every day of November, I thought this would be a good way for me to do that. (Blogging every day this month is sort of participating in NaBloPoMo (which is on my list) but I didn't actually sign up.)

This also might help me to actually meet the 15 minute challenge a few more times this year, as well as to finish another quilt (see #19 on my list).

So, the next step on this quilt is figuing out how much fabric to get.  I usually just guess at it and have either way too much or not nearly enough. Here are my calculations and it looks like I need to get one yard of each fabric. (Let's hope I did the calculations correctly.)  I usually do this in my notebook, but I didn't want to draw the pattern by hand.   

Oops. I just realized that this says the number of strips needed for each color, but it's actually the number of blocks.

I'm thinking of making 4 inch blocks in the quilt, which means the finished size of each block needs to be 4½ inchesI was too lazy to figure this out myself so I did some research on the internet to find out what size to cut my blocks to end up with the size of block I want.  The blogs/sites I read pretty much all said that the blocks, before being made into HSTs, needed to be 7/8 inches larger than the finished size, or 5⅜, so I'm cutting the strips/blocks to 5½ (giving myself a smidgen of extra that can just be cut off).  But then I'm wondering, when they say finished size, do they mean the 4 or the 4½ inches?  I'm hoping it refers to the 4 inch block, because I'm doing both HSTs and QSTs and I'm worried that I need to add another  or ½ (I can't remember which) to each of the pieces of the QST blocks.  I'm going to check the sample block I made last week to see what size the blocks that started out at 3 ¼ squares ended up.

I am excited about starting this quilt.  I want to go to the quilt shop and see what fabrics I can find. 

6 comments:

Sara said...

I only found out about NoBlaPoMo last night when I read the buzzfeed post on the best twitter suggestions, but I'd love to give it a go next year.

Did you design that quilt? I really like, it, though naturally I thought about doing it in a square of 4 colours instead of two, overcomplicating it to the point of probably not doing it :/

Marg said...

OK reading that did my head in. It doesn't help that I didn't get lots of sleep last night. math was my strong point years ago, but that just seems way too hard.

Peggy said...

Now that's going to be a FUN quilt!

Kate said...

Love the design! When working with half square triangles, the math gets really complicated really quickly. That additional 7/8 catches me every time. For safety's sake you might buy 1 and quarter yard. That way if you are off just a little, you'll still be OK. Looking forward to seeing what fabrics you choose for this project.

Shay said...

That maths is hurting my eyes.

Love your design. Its going to look great . Looking forward to seeing your process Thea. I dont think we share process enough.

Pokey said...

You have a nice design going. The math can be challenging, but it is very cool to work out. I tend to do it as I go, lol!
:-}pokey

2024 : Week 11 - March 11 - 17

    March 11 - llama socks     March 13 - swimming         March 14 - hanging at the pool       March 15       March 16 - easter smashpillow...