How to calculate yardage needed for your next quilt

Do you dread the thought of quilt math? Have you cut all your fabric for a quilt and realized while you were assembling that you were short? So frustrating! You will love this new tool.

A member of our guild, Audrey, created an online, free quilting calculator that determines the fabric yardage needed based on the details of your quilt design. The Gibson Threads calculator displays yardage, a recommended cut map and written cutting instructions!

Below is a detailed description on how to use the quilt calculator.

Variation on a sawtooth star quilt with half square triangles in the corners

1. Determine your quilt design. See the above example - a quilt made of 9 of the same block

2. Visit the calculator and set the number of blocks you will need. In our example, this would be 9. If your design is a large scale block, this would just be 1.

3. Add the fabric colors you will need in each block. Make sure to set the width of fabric for each of these as well.

4. Finally, start “building” your blocks with block components. You can select from:

   1. Squares/rectangles

   2. Half square triangles (HSTs)

   3. Flying Geese

   4. Snowballs (with 1-4 corners)

5. Make sure each block component has the size, the repeat (the number of times it appears in the block) and the colors set. In our example, we will use:

   1. 4 flying geese at 3.5”x6.5”

   2. 1 rectangle at 6.5”

   3. 4 HSTs at 3.5” square

6. Finally, click “Calculate Fabric Needed” to see the estimated yardage, fabric cut maps and written cutting descriptions

Displayed fabric estimates, cut recommendations and written cut instructions for variation on the sawtooth star quilt

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Building this quilting calculator (as well as the binding and backing calculators) is a hobby for Audrey. There are many improvements planned and possibly many bugs to find. If you have any questions, concerns or ideas, feel free to reach out to Audrey at hello@gibsonthreads.com or on Instagram @GibsonThreads.