Stripey Quilt Formulas

The quilt I was basting above was inspired by a quilt that was made by Finn Leah, who was inspired by Jane Weston. It’s a super easy stripey quilt that involves a bit of math to get the quilt to be the size you want it to be. Check out those two links to get the idea of HOW to sew this quilt. Below is the math for you to figure out how to cut the fabric and sew the intial strip. If you decide to try this one out, I’d love to see it!

I am a math person, so hopefully I can explain this well. First off, remember that your quilt will always have to have 8, 16, or 32 strips (unless you want to add more on the sides). Let’s say we want 16 strips. Next, determine how wide you want your quilt to be. So let’s say we want it to be roughly 60” wide. Now we divide 60” by 16 strips and we get 3.75, that is how wide our strips have to be after seam allowance if we want a 60” top. So you would cut the fabric to 4.25” to account for seam allowance. Now you determine how long you want your quilt to be, so let’s say we want it 90” … to get how long our super long strip should be, we multiply the number of strips (16) by the ending length (90”) and we get the length go our initial strip … 1440” .. So if we cut a 1440” strip that is 4.25” wide, we will end up with a 60×90 quilt.

So to recap:

You Choose:
Width of Quilt desired = X
Length of Quilt Desired = Y
Number of Strips Desired = Z (Must be 8, 16 or 32)

Calculated using formulas below:
Width of strips w/o seam Allowance = A
Width of strips w/ seam Allowance = B
Length of First Strip that is pieced = C

X / Z = A

A + .5 = B

Y * Z = C

Now go cut B sized strips and piece them together to from a length of strip that is C long, and sew as directed and you have your quilt!! 🙂 🙂

Please let me know if that helps you and your readers!

If your A (strip size w/o seam allowance) size is not a nice even number, you may need to change your quilt width by a few inches either way until you get a number you are happy with!

Rachel