Fabric requirements for an Irish Chain quilt

What are the fabric requirements for the single and double Irish chain quilt patterns?

Reply

Fabric requirements for a quilt are based on the finished size of the quilt and for an Irish chain how big a finished square is.

Other things that figure into the computation are whether it's a single or a double, how many fabrics you'll use i.e. will you be using up scraps, and what width border(s) you want for the quilt. The final thing you'll need to know is how wide are the fabrics you're using. When I design my patterns I assume a 40" width of fabric...in reality it's more like 44-45", but it gives me a little wiggle room.

Once you've determined those things, then it's simply drawing a diagram of the quilt, assigning colors/fabrics and then doing the math.

That might sound like a lot of work, but once you've worked through it a couple of times, it's pretty straight forward.

Now, as you've seen from some of the images on this site, I use Electric Quilt. Totally love the program because it's quick to draw out a pattern, quick to assign colors or fabrics, and with a click the program will compute yardage for a quilt. So far the yardages it's computed seem nicely generous, I do my own calculations by hand to double check. I add extra to each fabric depending on how many cuts I'll have to make and how scrappy I expect to make the quilt.

Now one thing to keep in mind is that for two quilts, made from the same block, but one has smaller blocks (and more of them) the smaller blocks will take more fabric, because more fabric is contained in the seam allowance.

If you've got some of the specifics, just reply in the 'comments' section below and I'll see if I can't run some numbers for you through Electric Quilt.

Just let me know.

Piecefully,

Julie Baird
Owner

This article was printed from Generations-Quilt-Patterns.com