And now the ‘UNFINISHED SIZE’

This term will ONLY refer to a cut piece of material,  block or a row of a quilt pattern prior to the quilt’s shell being completed.

In quilting, it can be pretty much guaranteed that we will use a 1/4 inch seam allowance for all construction.  This will then mean that our unfinished size will increase the finished size by a 1/2 inch both vertically and horizontally and only on one side each.  You see each 1/2 inch increase represents the 1/4 inch seam allowances that have yet to be sewn during your construction.

Throughout our quilt patterns we see a lot of measurements and there are times you will see the tern ‘finished’ or ‘unfinished’.  I have finally discovered through MANY trial and errors that when one of these terms are not being used they are referring to the finished measurement of the block.  

Now you could be thinking well so what does this mean if the pattern has given me cutting instructions; the quilt will come together anyway…  And yes this is very true; take the time to get to understand so as you construct your quilt you can make sure you are on the right track for piecing your blocks.  

Quilting is like putting a puzzle together.  You know that each piece fits together perfectly and when you try to push a piece in the wrong spot, it just will not fit. Same concept here! When sewing, if you go off an eighth of an inch, the ripple throughout your quilt can grow into the inches. – Now we kinda went into another topic ‘Precision Piecing’ (yes more will come on this)…Hummmmm

~ Desiree