Wait..... They told me there was to be no math!!

Remember when you were in school and you were forced to take math... Algebra, Geometry... and you said to your snotty teenage self...."When am I ever going to need THIS stuff?" and dug in your heels and you did just the minimal amount of work to get by.

Well, if you ever plan to be a quilter: or actually to be a carpenter or any other building type of trade, you are going to need those skills. Quilting and especially piece work is all about math and geometry.

Since I have all these scraps of fabric to use, I want to make a small baby quilt for the pending GRANDSON. Something that he can lay on and that they can use as a wall hanging later. I've been informed that the baby's room will be in bright primary colors so I've settled on this pattern?



Cool. So I download the pattern and instructions from www.allpeoplequilt.com. Easy peasy pattern. Just make strips of fabric from the scraps using the rotary cutter and sew together.

Unfortunately, there is a snag. The quilt is too small given the size of strips in the pattern. Each block is 7 inches. All I have to do is figure what size I want the finished quilt to be and enlarge the block and enlarge the strips. No problemo. Right?

Each block is 7 strips wide



Each strip is cut with a 1/4 inch seam allowance. SO then, if I want a 12 inch block then I divide by 7 and add 1/2 inch to each piece. 2.2142857 inches. Hmmmm that isn't going to work.

Ok. 10 inch blocks. 10/7 +.5 = 1.9285714 yikes. Too much math.

Ah... Screw it. I'll just have to wing it!! Cut the strips 2.25 inches and end up with a finished strip 1.75 inches.