Quilt Fabric Calculator
Work out yardage one fabric at a time. Enter the patch size and how many you need — from finished size if you prefer — and get patches per strip, strips to cut, and the yardage for that colour.
Only added when you enter a finished size. Quarter inch is the quilting standard.
Formula & how it works
From a finished size, cut size is finished + seam × 2. Patches per strip is floor(usable width ÷ cut width), strips is ceil(quantity ÷ per strip), and fabric is strips × cut length.
Both orientations are tested and the more efficient one is used, then the waste allowance is applied and the result divided by 36 for yards.
Worked example
Sixty 6.5-inch cut squares on 44-inch fabric: six fit across each strip, so ten strips of 6.5 inches gives 65 inches of fabric — about 2 yards with a 10% allowance. Two hundred 3.5-inch squares fit twelve per strip, needing seventeen strips, roughly 1.8 yards.
Buying fabric by the piece
Cut size is what matters
Patterns quote finished sizes, but fabric is consumed at cut size. With a quarter-inch seam every patch is half an inch larger in both directions than it will appear, and forgetting that across a few hundred patches leaves you well short.
Strip width drives efficiency
Patches are cut from strips running the fabric width, so any leftover at the end of a strip is waste. Sizes that divide neatly into roughly 42 usable inches — like 3.5 or 6 inches — waste very little, while an awkward size can leave several inches unused on every strip.
Calculate colour by colour
A scrappy quilt uses many fabrics in different quantities, so a single total is not much use at the shop. Running the numbers per fabric gives a shopping list you can actually buy from, and it shows quickly which fabric you need a full yard of versus a fat quarter.