How Many Yards Do I Need?

[lucyem]

Can some one help me? I do not sew and plan on sending this out. The problem is I cannot find a local person to call me back. I found material I love at 90% off and need to get it ASAP.

I have two pillows to cover four chairs on my porch. The bottom pillow is 21" x 21" and 4" deep. It had a box spring so only needs a cover on the top and 4 sides. The back pillow is 20" x 20" and 4 1/2" deep. It needs cover on all sides. The material has a very large repeat, 27".

The store people said I need 8 yards per pillow in order for everything to line up correctly. Even at 90% off this puts the fabric out of my budget. I have 4 chairs with 2 pillows each. I am not sure what they are trying to line up either. It sounded like they were trying to make the pillows line up visually. I could care less about that.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thank you!

[gmvh]

If you don't care about the pattern in the fabric being aligned, I usually draw problems like this to calculate my yardage. Graph paper works well or plain paper and just keep track of things. Good luck - eight yards per pillow sounds way off. Do you know how wide the fabric is?

[sapphire_chan]

Per chair you need 441+336+800+320=1897 square inches 7588 total
60" wide fabric 7588/60/36inches/yard = just over 3.5 yards
45" wide fabric 7588/45/36inches/yard = just under 4.7 yards
Since you need squares and rectangles of a particular size, add a yard

However the edges would show a definite transition from front to side, side to back, like a wallpaper seam that isn't matched up correctly, and the repeat of the image wouldn't be centered on the seats and backs.

The general rule of thumb for matching patterns is 1.5x the needed yardage, so 8 yards should be fine.

[lucyem]

The fabric is 54" wide.

Right now the fabric on the pillows does not line up in any way. There is piping of the material on all edges. Sorry I do not know the right terms.

Bummer on the 8 yards

[cristeen]

Originally Posted by lucyem

I have two pillows to cover four chairs on my porch. The bottom pillow is 21" x 21" and 4" deep. It had a box spring so only needs a cover on the top and 4 sides. The back pillow is 20" x 20" and 4 1/2" deep. It needs cover on all sides. The material has a very large repeat, 27".

8 yards per pillow is a rip-off. 8 yards total, maybe.

With 54 inch wide fabric... for each chair you would need 1 piece of 22x22, 2 pieces of 21x21, and 2 pieces of 5x90 (or 4 pieces of 5x45)... you'll need to play with the layout to get the most out of your fabric, but 2 yards per chair should be plenty, assuming you're not planning on doing the corded edging.

[Masel]

You could use the beloved fabric for the flat part of the pillow and use a coordinating (or constrasting) solid for the sides. You won't have to worry about the pattern lining up on individual pillows and you can probably get a solid inexpensively.