Unit 1: Measuring a Room and Estimating Yardage

The Steel Tape and the Written Record

Every yard of fabric you will buy for this room rests on numbers you take in the next hour. If those numbers are soft, everything downstream is soft with them. Good measuring is not talent. It is a tool choice, a habit, and a piece of paper.

Use the right tape

Set the cloth tape aside. A dressmaker's tape stretches with age and with pulling, and over an eighty-inch window that stretch can hide an inch. For windows, walls, and furniture, use a retractable steel tape at least twelve feet long. The hooked metal end is designed to slide a little: it slides out when you hook it over an edge and in when you butt it against a surface, so that the reading is true either way. Do not pinch it still with your thumb and then wonder why your inside and outside readings disagree.

Read the tape square on. Sighting a mark from an angle can put you off by an eighth of an inch, and eighths add up across four cut drops. Work in inches and eighths, and write the fraction rather than rounding it in your head. If you prefer millimeters, stay in millimeters for the whole job. Mixing units is where mistakes hide.

Measure three times, in three places

Windows are rarely square, and old houses are almost never square. Measure the width at the top of the opening, at the middle, and at the bottom. Measure the height at the left, the center, and the right. If the three widths differ by more than a quarter inch, you have a window that will show a crooked hem if you trust a single reading. Note all three numbers. You will decide later which one governs; for now your job is to see the window as it actually is, not as it ought to be.

Over long spans a steel tape sags in the middle and reads long. Have someone hold the far end, or hook it and keep the blade against the wall. For anything above your reach, use a step stool with a wide base rather than a chair, and keep both feet on the same tread while you read.

Keep one sheet per room

Rule a sheet of paper into columns: window name, wall, opening width, opening height, floor-to-ceiling height, and any obstruction, such as a radiator, a deep sill, a light switch, or a door that swings toward the window. Name your windows in a way you will still understand in three weeks: "kitchen, over sink" beats "window 2." Date the sheet. If you measure a second room later, the dated sheet tells you which set of figures you trusted.

Measure the depth of the sill and the projection of any trim while you are there. Those two numbers decide later whether a panel will hang free or rub, and going back up the stool for them is a nuisance.

What goes wrong

The most common error is measuring the glass instead of the opening, which produces curtains that are visibly mean across the window. The second is measuring an existing curtain and assuming it was right. It may have been hemmed short years ago. Measure the window and the hardware, never the old textile. The third is trusting memory between the stool and the paper. Write the number before you climb down.

Honest numbers

Solomon writes that the hearing ear and the seeing eye are both the Lord's making. That is worth remembering with a tape in your hand, because the temptation in measuring is not laziness so much as wishfulness. We want the window to be the size that suits the fabric we already love. A number written down honestly, even when it is inconvenient, is a small act of truthfulness, and the whole project rests on it. Take the reading your eye actually sees, record it, and let the arithmetic tell you what it will.

Before you leave the room, read your sheet back aloud against the window. Errors that survive the tape rarely survive being said out loud.

Hang the Rod First: Hardware Sets Every Number That Follows

Here is the rule that saves the most fabric and the most grief: a curtain is not measured from the window. It is measured from the hardware. Until the rod is on the wall, or at least marked on the wall in pencil, you do not yet have a length or a width to work from.

Height: get the rod up off the frame

A rod set right on the top of the window casing shortens the window to the eye and makes the room feel low. Set the rod somewhere between four and twelve inches above the top of the frame, depending on how much wall you have. If there is generous wall between the casing and the ceiling, higher looks better and lets more daylight into the opening when the panels are drawn back. If the casing nearly meets the ceiling, four inches may be all you have, and that is fine.

Check the ceiling line before you commit. Older ceilings dip. If you set the rod by measuring down from the ceiling, a dipping ceiling gives you a tilted rod; if you set it by measuring up from the casing, a settled casing gives you the same problem. Mark both, look at them, and choose the line that will read as level to someone standing in the doorway.

Width: plan the stack-back

The rod should run wider than the opening on both sides, so the drawn-back panels sit on the wall instead of on the glass. The gathered bundle of a drawn-back panel is called the stack-back, and you can estimate yours by pleating the fabric in your hands and measuring the bundle. Give each side at least that much wall, and the window will be uncovered at midday. Give it none, and even open curtains will cut your daylight.

Measure the bracket projection too, that is, how far the rod stands out from the wall. That distance is what the panel must wrap around at the outer end to close against the wall, and you will add it into your width figure in the next study.

Level, plumb, and the plummet

Set the brackets with a spirit level, not by eye and not by the casing. Isaiah speaks of judgment laid to the line and righteousness to the plummet, and the image is a builder's: the plumb bob and the chalked line are indifferent to what we wanted. A wall is not straight because we hoped so. Trust the level, mark the screw holes in pencil, and then step back across the room and look at the line one more time before you drill.

For any span over about four feet, or for any panel with blackout or thermal lining, fit a center support bracket. Lined panels are heavy, and a wet or steamed panel is heavier still. Check the weight rating stamped on the hardware packaging and match your wall anchors to it. A rod that pulls out of drywall takes plaster and a strip of your afternoon with it.

Where the fabric actually hangs from

Your finished length is measured from the point the fabric hangs from, and that point differs by heading. On a rod pocket, the fabric hangs from the top of the rod itself, and the header stands above it. On rings or clips, measure from the bottom of the ring eye, because that is where the hook or clip grips. Fit one ring on the rod and measure from it before you decide anything.

Get all of this settled and written down: bracket height above the floor, rod length, projection, ring-eye height. Those four numbers, not the window, are the foundation of the estimate.

What goes wrong

Curtains ordered before hardware is chosen are the classic waste. A change from a pocket rod to rings can move the hanging point by an inch and a half, which is enough to leave a floor-length panel hovering. Decide the hardware, hang it or mark it, and only then pick up the tape.

Fullness: Why the Panel Must Be Far Wider Than the Window

The single most expensive mistake in home sewing is cutting curtain panels the width of the window. Fabric that exactly spans a rod hangs flat, thin, and apologetic. What makes a curtain look like a curtain is the standing fold, and folds are made of surplus width.

The fullness ratio

Fullness is the total flat width of your finished panels divided by the width of the rod they hang on. At 2x fullness, one hundred inches of finished panel hangs on a fifty-inch rod. The working range runs from 1.5x to 3x:

• 2x is the classic all-purpose choice and the one to use if you are unsure.
• Pinch pleats want 2x to 2.5x, because the pleats themselves eat width.
• Grommet headings sit comfortably at 1.5x to 2x; the grommets fix the fold spacing

and too much cloth makes them buckle.

• Sheers take 2x to 3x, since thin cloth needs more of itself to read as fabric at

all.

Below 1.5x you no longer have a curtain, you have a hanging sheet. Above 3x, most domestic rods begin to strain and the panels will not draw back off the glass.

Working the width, step by step

Start with the rod length between the finials, not the window. Add the bracket projection once for each outer end, since the panel has to turn the corner and meet the wall; that turned portion is the return. If you are making a pair that meets in the middle, add a few inches of overlap so the two panels cross rather than gap. Call that total the covering width.

Multiply the covering width by your fullness ratio. That is the total finished flat width you need across all panels. Divide by the number of panels to get the finished flat width of each one.

Now add the side hems. Curtain side hems are double folded, which means the fabric is turned twice so no raw edge shows and no fraying begins. A one-and-a-half-inch finished side hem consumes three inches of fabric, and there are two sides, so add six inches to each panel's flat width. Where you seam two widths of cloth together to make one panel, each of the two edges gives up a 5/8-inch seam allowance, so a seam costs 1 1/4 inches of width in total.

A worked example

A rod measures 60 inches between finials. The brackets project 3 1/2 inches, so add 3 1/2 inches for each outer return: 67 inches. A pair meets in the center, so add 3 inches of overlap: 70 inches of covering width. At 2x fullness that is 140 inches of finished flat panel, or 70 inches for each of two panels. Add six inches of side hem to each: 76 inches of flat cloth per panel. That, not sixty, is the number you will take to the fabric shop.

What goes wrong

Skimping fullness to save money is the error people regret longest, because it cannot be repaired afterward. You cannot add fullness to a finished panel; you can only start again. If the budget is tight, drop to a plainer fabric at full fullness rather than a fine fabric at 1.25x. The cheaper cloth pleated generously looks handsome. The costly cloth stretched flat looks poor.

The second error is forgetting the return, so that the outer edge of a closed curtain floats an inch or two off the wall and lets a bar of light through at dawn.

Solomon says the thoughts of the diligent tend to plenteousness, while haste tends to want. That proverb is almost a technical note here. Fullness is literally plenteousness in cloth, and it is bought at the planning table, with a pencil, before a single yard is paid for. Fifteen minutes of arithmetic now is worth more than any skill you will use at the machine later.

Deciding the Length, Then Adding What the Hems Will Eat

Width is arithmetic. Length is a decision first and arithmetic second. Where the hem falls changes the character of a room more than the color of the cloth does, so make the choice deliberately and then be generous with the allowances the choice requires.

Choose where the hem falls

There are three sound places to end a panel, and one to avoid.

At the sill. The hem stops about half an inch above the sill so it does not rub. Practical over a kitchen counter, a radiator, or a deep window seat.

Below the apron. The apron is the trim beneath the sill. Ending roughly four inches below it gives a tidy, settled look without committing to floor length.

At the floor. For a panel that hangs straight and clears the carpet, aim for half an inch of clearance. For a soft break, let the panel rest on the floor by an inch or so; understand that the resting hem collects dust and must be shaken and vacuumed.

What to avoid is a hem landing an inch or two above the floor. The eye reads it as a mistake rather than a choice, every time.

Measure from the hanging point

Measure from the point established with your hardware, the top of the rod for a pocket, or the bottom of the ring eye for rings, down to your chosen hem line. Take this at both ends of the rod and in the center. Floors settle. If the three readings differ, the panels can be cut to match the floor rather than each other, but you must know before you cut.

Add the allowances

Now add fabric for what is folded away.

Bottom hem. Curtains want a deep hem, a visible two to three inches, because the weight helps the panel hang plumb instead of flaring or twisting in a draft. A double-fold hem uses twice the visible depth, so a 3-inch finished hem needs 6 inches of cloth, and a 2-inch hem needs 4 inches.

Top allowance. For a rod pocket, add the pocket itself, 2 1/2 inches for a standard continental rod, plus the header, the small standing ruffle above the pocket, at 1 to 2 inches, plus about half an inch turned under so no raw edge shows. A 1 1/2-inch header on a 2 1/2-inch pocket therefore needs 4 1/2 inches. Before you settle on 2 1/2 inches, measure your actual rod: a thick wooden pole needs a wider casing and will bind in a pocket cut to a thin rod.

Cut length is finished length plus bottom hem allowance plus top allowance. A 84-inch finished panel with a 3-inch hem and that 4 1/2-inch top comes to 94 1/2 inches; round up to 95 and cut there.

Weights, and a word of care

Lead-filled weighted tape stitched into the hem anchors the bottom edge so panels hang straight rather than flaring. It comes in 25, 50 and 100 grams per meter; light for sheers, heavy for dense cloth. Secure it at the ends only rather than stitching along its full length, so the hem keeps its drape. It is lead: keep it out of reach of children, do not leave offcuts in a workbasket a child visits, and wash your hands when you are done handling it.

What goes wrong

The commonest failure in the whole trade is cutting to finished length and discovering the allowances afterward. The panel is then short, and a short panel cannot be lengthened without a visible seam or a contrast band. Write cut length on your sheet in a different color from finished length so the two never blur.

"Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof," the Preacher says, and he adds that the patient in spirit is better than the proud. The hem is the end of the thing. It is also the part everyone sees at eye level from across the room. Take the extra half hour to measure the drop three times and to add every allowance on paper before the scissors come out.

Joining Widths: Selvages, Seams, and Panels Wider Than the Bolt

Your arithmetic has told you a panel must be, say, 76 inches of flat cloth. No bolt in the shop is 76 inches wide. So the panel will be made of more than one width of fabric seamed together, and knowing how many is the hinge of the whole estimate. Get this number wrong and every yard that follows is wrong.

Find the usable width, not the printed width

Quilting-weight cottons and shirtings are commonly 45 inches wide. Many other dress and decorating cloths run 55 to 60 inches. Do not assume: read the bolt end, and then lay your steel tape across the cloth yourself. Bolt-end labels are sometimes nominal, and a fabric can arrive an inch narrower than advertised.

Then subtract the selvages. The selvage is the tightly woven, self-finished edge where the manufacturer prints fiber content and color registration dots. It is denser than the rest of the cloth, it shrinks differently, and left inside a seam it makes a rigid line that puckers after the first wash. Trim it away. Reckon on losing half an inch to an inch at each edge. A 45-inch cloth with three-quarters of an inch of selvage on each side gives about 43 1/2 inches of usable width.

Count the widths

Divide the flat width your panel needs by the usable fabric width, and round up to a whole number. A panel needing 76 inches on a cloth with 43 1/2 usable inches gives 1.75, which rounds up to two widths. Never round down and hope.

Then check the arithmetic the other way, because seams take their share. Two widths joined with a 5/8-inch seam allowance on each edge give 43 1/2 plus 43 1/2 minus 1 1/4, which is 85 3/4 inches, comfortably more than the 76 you need. The surplus is trimmed off the outer edges before hemming, and that is normal work, not waste to be ashamed of.

Where the seams should fall

Never put a seam down the middle of a single panel where it will sit in the center of a window. Instead, run a full width up the leading edge, the edge that meets its partner in the middle of the window, and put the part-width at the outer edge where it turns the return and is half hidden against the wall. On a pair of panels, mirror this so the two full widths face each other across the center.

If you are working with a plain, unpatterned cloth, press the seam allowances open so the seam disappears. On a heavier decorating fabric, press them to one side toward the outer edge so the seam does not shadow through in daylight.

Needle and thread for a long seam

For woven curtain fabrics, use a universal or sharp 90/14 needle. That size takes 40-weight thread comfortably. Reach for a 100/16 only if you have gone up to a thicker 30-weight thread; remember that with thread weights the lower number is the thicker thread. Match them honestly. A 40-weight thread crammed through too fine a needle frays and snaps halfway down a two-yard seam, and a heavy needle in light cloth leaves a visible row of holes. Core-spun polyester runs smoothly, sheds little lint, and survives repeated laundering, which matters for something that will be washed for years.

These seams are long. Bundle the finished portion in your lap or over your shoulder rather than letting a heavy panel hang off the table edge, where its own weight drags the fabric askew and can pull your fingers toward the needle as you guide it.

What goes wrong

Two errors dominate. The first is leaving the selvage in, which produces a seam that puckers permanently after washing. The second is rounding the width count down, usually because the shortfall looks small on paper. A panel two inches narrow is not a panel that is nearly right; it is a panel with the fullness quietly taken out of it.

The Preacher names a time to rend and a time to sew. Cutting cloth apart in order to join it wider is exactly that pairing, and it is honest work. Mark the cut line, cut cleanly, then seam it back together stronger and broader than the loom made it.

Repeats, Nap, and One-Way Prints: What a Patterned Cloth Costs

Every calculation so far has assumed a plain cloth, where one piece is as good as another and you may cut anywhere. A patterned fabric revokes that freedom. The design decides where the cut may fall, and it charges you fabric for the privilege.

The pattern repeat

The repeat is the distance along the length of the cloth before the design begins again. It is often printed on the bolt end, and where it is not, you can find it by laying the fabric out, choosing a distinctive point in the motif, and measuring to the identical point in the next occurrence.

The rule that governs cutting is simple: every drop in the same room must begin at the same point in the repeat, or the motifs will not line up where two widths are seamed, and adjacent panels will not agree. So each cut length must be rounded up to a whole number of repeats.

Work it like this. Divide the cut length by the repeat, round up to a whole number, and multiply back. A cut length of 95 inches on a 24-inch repeat gives 3.96, which rounds up to 4, and 4 times 24 is 96 inches per drop. That is a modest penalty. A cut length of 98 inches on that same repeat gives 4.08, rounding to 5, and 5 times 24 is 120 inches: a 22-inch penalty on every single drop. With four drops that is more than two extra yards. Large repeats are where estimates quietly double, and it is worth asking the shop for the repeat before you fall in love with the cloth.

Nap and one-way designs

Nap is a raised surface, as on velvet, corduroy, or brushed cotton, that catches light differently depending on which way it is stroked. Run your hand along the cloth both ways: one direction feels smooth and looks lighter, the other feels rough and reads darker. A directional print, a scene, a row of trees, a motif with an obvious top, behaves the same way for a different reason.

Either kind requires a with-nap layout, meaning every piece is cut facing the same direction. You lose the ability to turn a piece end for end to nest it against its neighbor, and that alone can raise yardage by 15 to 25 percent. Mark the top of every piece with chalk or a pinned slip of paper as you cut. A panel hung upside down is not fixable.

Matching across the seam

When you join two widths, match at the seam line, not at the raw edge, because 5/8 inch on each side is about to disappear into the seam. Fold under the seam allowance on one width, lay that folded edge over the other width until the motifs sit exactly on each other, and pin through both. Then baste along the fold before you machine it. Patterned cloth creeps under the presser foot, and a seam that matched under the pins can walk a quarter inch out of true over two yards. Basting holds it.

What goes wrong

Buying the pattern-envelope or plain-cloth yardage for a figured fabric is the error, and it is discovered at the worst possible moment, halfway through cutting. Add the repeat allowance first, then the 10 to 15 percent buffer, not one instead of the other.

The second failure is matching by eye at the fabric edge and finding after stitching that the motifs are half an inch off. From across a room the human eye finds a broken pattern instantly, though it cannot say why the window looks wrong.

The psalm speaks of raiment of needlework brought before the king, cloth whose worked design was worth remarking on. Figured fabric has always been prized, and it has always demanded more care and more material than plain. Pay that cost knowingly, in the estimate, rather than discovering it in the cutting.

Shrinkage, Mistakes, and the Margin the Wise Set Aside

An estimate built on perfect cutting, perfect cloth, and no surprises is not an estimate. It is a wish. The last two figures to add before you buy are the one that covers shrinkage and the one that covers being human.

Prewash, and prove the shrinkage yourself

Natural fibers relax and draw up when they first meet hot water. For cotton, linen, and wool, a first-wash shrinkage in the range of 3 to 5 percent is common. But that range is a guide, not a law: fiber blends, loose weaves, and finished or coated cloths behave differently, and the only figure you can fully trust is the one you measure.

So test. Cut a square yard from your fabric, or from a half yard bought ahead. With a fabric marker or a line of basting, mark a precise 18-inch square inside it, well away from the edges. Wash and dry the sample exactly as the finished curtains will be washed and dried, then measure the square again. If it now reads 17 1/2 inches lengthwise, you have lost half an inch in eighteen, which is about 2.8 percent. On a 95-inch cut length that is nearly 2 3/4 inches, more than enough to lift a hem off the floor.

Then prewash the whole piece before cutting, with the same water temperature and the same drying method you plan to use for the life of the curtains. Press it flat while slightly damp and cut only after it has cooled and settled.

Face fabric and lining shrink at different rates

This is the reason lined curtains pucker after their first wash. The face cloth draws up one amount, the lining another, and the layers fight each other along every stitched line. Prewash both, and wash them the same way. If you are unwilling to prewash, or the cloth cannot be washed, plan for a detachable lining hung on shared hooks instead of one stitched in. A separate lining can be laundered on its own, and can be replaced when it wears out without unpicking the face fabric.

The buffer

On top of shrinkage, add 10 to 15 percent to your total for the ordinary accidents of the trade: a cutting error, a flaw woven into the cloth, a scorch from a hot iron, a pattern match that has to be re-cut, a sample square used for testing your seam and your stitch tension. Take the higher end of that range on your first project with an unfamiliar fabric, on anything with a large repeat, and on any cloth you cannot buy more of later. Fabric is dyed in lots, and a shop is rarely able to sell you an exact match six weeks after you first bought.

Work it as a multiplication at the end. If your drops come to 10.6 yards, then 12 percent gives 11.9 yards, and you buy 12. Do not add the buffer twice by first rounding every drop up and then adding a percentage on top of the rounded figure; generosity is not the same as sloppy arithmetic.

Left over is not wasted

The offcut goes into tiebacks, a cushion cover, a pelmet, a bound edge, or the patch that repairs a snag in three years. Keep it folded with a slip of paper noting the room, the date, and the fiber.

The wise virgins in the parable were not extravagant. They simply carried oil against a delay they could not predict, and it cost them very little to do it. A yard of extra cloth in the cupboard is the same kind of foresight: cheap now, irreplaceable later.

Working the Whole Sheet: One Window from Rod to Register

Every piece is now in hand. What follows is one complete estimate, worked in order, for a single pair of lined curtains. Copy the order of operations onto a card and keep it in your workbox; the order matters more than the particular numbers.

Step one: the width

The rod measures 60 inches between the finials. The brackets project 3 1/2 inches, and the outer end of each panel must turn that return, so add 3 1/2 inches twice: 67 inches. The pair meets in the center, so add 3 inches of overlap: 70 inches of covering width.

Multiply by the fullness ratio. At 2x, that is 140 inches of finished flat panel across the window, or 70 inches for each of the two panels.

Add side hems. Each side hem is 1 1/2 inches finished, double folded, so it eats 3 inches, and there are two sides: add 6 inches. Each panel needs 76 inches of flat cloth.

Step two: the number of drops

The cloth measures 45 inches on the bolt. Trim three-quarters of an inch of selvage from each edge and the usable width is 43 1/2 inches. Divide 76 by 43 1/2 and you get 1.75, which rounds up to two widths per panel. Two panels, so four drops in all.

Check it the other way before you go on. Two usable widths joined at 5/8 inch on each edge give 43 1/2 plus 43 1/2 minus 1 1/4, or 85 3/4 inches. That is nearly ten inches more than the 76 you need, and it will be trimmed off at the outer edges. Comfortable, and correct.

Step three: the cut length

From the top of the rod to the chosen hem line, half an inch clear of the floor, measures 84 inches. Add the bottom hem: 3 inches finished, double folded, so 6 inches. Add the top: a 2 1/2-inch rod pocket plus a 1 1/2-inch header plus half an inch turned under, which is 4 1/2 inches. Cut length is 84 plus 6 plus 4 1/2, or 94 1/2 inches. Round up to 95.

Step four: the repeat

This cloth has a 24-inch repeat. Divide 95 by 24 and you get 3.96, which rounds up to 4 whole repeats, so every drop is cut at 96 inches. The penalty here is only one inch per drop, which is a mercy. Had the cut length been 98 inches, each drop would have gone to 120.

Step five: total, the buffer, and the register

Four drops at 96 inches is 384 inches. Divided by 36, that is 10.67 yards. Add 12 percent for shrinkage, cutting errors and a test seam: 11.95 yards. Buy 12.

Sanity-check the prewash against that figure. If the cloth shrinks 3 percent in length, 12 yards comes off the line at about 11.6 yards, or 419 inches, still comfortably above the 384 inches of drops you must cut. If your test square had shown 8 percent, you would go back and buy 13.

Register it.

Write the finished figures on the room sheet from the first study: window name, rod length, fullness, drops, cut length, repeat, yardage bought, fabric and lining by name and fiber, and the date. Note the lining yardage separately, since lining is usually a different width and takes its own calculation.

Solomon promises that a man diligent in his business will stand before kings. There is nothing glamorous in six columns of arithmetic on a kitchen table, but it is the part of the work that separates a room that looks made from a room that looks attempted. Do the sheet, then go and buy with a settled mind.

Measuring the Rest of the Room: Cushions, Cloths, and Bed Covers

Windows are the hardest thing in a room to estimate, and everything else is easier once the habit is formed. Three more shapes cover most of what a household needs: a cushion, a cloth for a table, and a cover for a bed.

Cushions: measure the pad, not the old cover

Lay the cushion pad flat and measure across its widest point in both directions, pressing gently but not squashing it. Cut your front piece to those exact dimensions plus a 5/8-inch seam allowance on all four sides. Do not add ease. A cover cut to the pad's flat measurement comes out slightly snug, which is what makes a cushion look plump and filled rather than sagging in a bag.

The back is easiest as two overlapping pieces. Cut each one the same height as the front, and make their combined width equal the front width plus about 4 inches, so they overlap generously in the middle. Hem the two overlapping edges before you assemble, and you have a cover that slides off for washing with no zipper at all.

Measure the old cover only to learn what went wrong with it. Covers stretch, and copying a stretched cover produces another loose one.

Table linens

A rectangular cloth is the tabletop plus two drops plus hem. Measure the tabletop length and width, decide your drop, that is, how far down the sides the cloth should fall, and hold a tape at the table edge to see it rather than guessing. Then, in each direction, take the tabletop measurement and add twice the drop, then add hem allowance: a 1-inch finished double-fold hem needs 2 inches per edge, so 4 inches in each direction.

A table 60 by 36 inches with a 10-inch drop needs 60 plus 20 plus 4, which is 84 inches long, and 36 plus 20 plus 4, which is 60 inches wide.

For a round table, measure the diameter across the center, add twice the drop, then add the hem allowance, and cut a circle of that finished diameter. Fold the cloth into quarters, mark an arc from the folded center with a pencil tied to a string, and cut through all layers.

Bed covers

Measure the made bed, over the bedding you actually use, since a winter quilt lifts the surface a good deal. Take the width across the top and the length from head to foot. Decide the drop from the top surface down each side and add it twice to the width, and add one drop to the length for the foot. If the cover is to tuck under pillows, add 12 to 18 inches at the head.

Bed covers and large cloths almost always exceed the fabric width, so they are seamed. Never run a seam down the center. Put one full width down the middle and equal part-widths at each side; the two side seams read as deliberate, while a center seam reads as a fault.

Give some of it away

Paul tells the man who once stole to labor instead, working with his hands the thing which is good, and gives the reason plainly: that he may have to give to him that needeth. Household sewing lends itself to that. Cushion covers, a cloth for a table, a quilt for a bed all fall within an afternoon or two once you can measure, and there is nearly always a family nearby setting up a first home with bare windows and a borrowed table. Measure theirs while you are measuring yours.

The Cutting Plan and the Trip to the Fabric Shop

You have a yardage figure. Before you spend money on it, prove it on paper, and before you cut, draw the plan that tells your scissors where to go.

The calculation method against the layout method

Everything so far has been the calculation method: multiply, add allowances, round up. It is fast and it is right for curtains, because curtain pieces are plain rectangles that stack neatly one after another down the cloth.

The layout method is different and more exact. You draw the fabric to scale, a long strip at the true usable width, and you draw every piece you must cut, to the same scale, then arrange them on it. Quarter-inch graph paper works well: let one square stand for two inches. Where a project has odd shapes, a round cloth, a shaped pelmet, a seat cover with a boxed side, a set of tiebacks, the layout method will show you savings, or shortages, that no formula predicts. Use calculation for rectangles and layout for anything that is not.

Lay the large, awkward pieces down first, respecting their direction, then fill the gaps between them with the small ones: ties, facings, welt strips, cushion backs. Reversing that order wastes cloth every time.

Grain, folds, and bias

Grainline runs parallel to the selvage. Every piece must be placed with its grainline arrow parallel to the selvage, checked by measuring from the arrow to the selvage at both ends of the arrow and adjusting until the two measurements match. Off-grain pieces hang crooked, pull at seams, and can look a different shade in daylight than their neighbors.

Decide how the cloth will lie. A crosswise fold, selvage to selvage, lets you cut mirrored pairs at once and is efficient for cushion fronts and backs. A flat single layer gives you more control and is safer with a nap, a large repeat, or a slippery cloth, at the cost of cutting each piece separately.

Anything cut on the true bias, at 45 degrees to the grain, needs roughly double the yardage of the same piece cut on straight grain, because bias pieces cannot nest against each other. Bias-cut binding for a round tablecloth is worth the cost, since only a bias strip will curve smoothly around a circle, but budget for it before you are standing at the counter.

At the shop

Take the sheet. Read the bolt end for fiber content, width, and care instructions, and measure the width yourself with your own tape. Buy the whole quantity from one bolt where you can; dye can vary between bolts and the difference that is invisible in the shop becomes obvious across a sunny window. Ask for the repeat if the cloth is figured. Ask them to cut generously rather than exactly; a shop that cuts tight can leave you an inch short on the last drop.

Cutting day

Press the prewashed cloth. Lay it out on a table or a clean floor, in one plane, not draped over an edge where its own weight pulls it out of true. Draw your plan beside you and mark every piece before cutting any of them, so a mistake is still a chalk line rather than a cut. Keep rotary cutters closed the instant you set them down, and keep small children out of the room while blades, pins and shears are lying on the floor.

The psalm says you shall eat the labor of your hands, and that it shall be well with you. There is a real gladness in a room dressed by your own work, made with fabric you chose and figures you calculated yourself. It begins with a pencil, and it is well worth the hour.