katie1

Has anybody had good luck with this? The full name is Quilter's FabriCalc. I have the user manual and a booklet called Quilter's Fabricalc in a Nutshell. In a nutshell is right, it's very skimpy information. If you have a quilt with a single pattern in all the blocks, and a solid (not pieced from shapes) border, I can do ok. But if Im dealing with multiple shapes and sizes mixed in, or a pieced border, I get a different answer every time I run my numbers through. There's an example in the book that says to figure out yardage for a square in a square ( in a 10 inch block) to treat the inside square as a block and the 4 triangle "corners" as half square triangles. The inside square's diagonal (the square's side I believe they mean, they say this is the size of the inside square which matches my pattern's directions) is 71/8". The half square triangles come out to 5 finished or 5 7/8" unfinished size. then it says to cut the strip 8" wide to cut all this from. They lost me at the 8 inches. The only way I can figure out to do a pieced border is to treat it as it's own separate quilt. In my quilt I have a total of 36 pieced "blocks" in the border (each made up of three 3"x101/2" strips) framing a 9x9 block quilt, the other 4 blocks in the border are a simple 9 patch in each of the 4 corners, so I entered it as 36 blocks across and 1 block down so it doesn't calculate length x width to come up with a solid area instead of a frame. Is there a general guideline for how much material is needed to make a queen or king sized quilt top? I have made smaller quilts, and it is really hard to find directions for king size quilts so I'm always guesstimating on how much more material to buy. Not really into doing my own design so something like Electric Quilt would be overkill for me, but maybe it would be worth it in the long run to not tear my hair out or over/underbuy fabric.

Jim's Gem

I have one of those but have never learned how to use it either. I just use it as a regular calculator. No one steals it from me because it says "Quilt" on it.
I'll watch this thread to see if I learn something!

SandyQuilter

I used to review tools for Threads magazine. I purchased a FabriCalc and do not use it. My feeling is that if a product is so difficult to understand and you have to use it repeatedly to remember--well, the darned thing is useless. Figuring fabric? I use the old method even after 30 years of quilting: gridded paper and draw it out. That way I know exactly what I have designed and how much fabric to buy. And I don't have to relearn the process each time I do it.

Sandy

Matilda

I use mine all the time and I find it very useful. I don't usually find most gadgets useful or helpful but this one I do.

katie1

what gets me is when you have multiple shapes within a block - a square in a square or rectangles in a square. That's what when I really get off the track. I get 'answers', but I know from common sense that the answers that are coming from it cannot possibly be correct. any hints? I'd love to see about half a dozen quilt blocks analyzed to really get a better idea of how to use it. Also, I've never seen any information on how to figure out a pieced border.