question from the mathmatically challanged

I'm not sure I can help you with the math part, but if you cut your strips WOF ( width of fabric ) and sew them together, then you can use a ruler with a 45 degree line on it. Just line it up on one corner, and cut when it hits the opposite corner. That will give you a square.

Five 1 - 1/2" strips sewn together and cut into squares should give you a 5" finished block, ie a 5 -1/2" square. Sounds good to me!

Elena in Tx, also dimming the lights.

YES

YES

YES. You cut them at finished size plus 1/2 inch.

My own problem is not the math--I can do math problems. Where I get into trouble is alternating back and forth between "finished" and "unfinished" sizes.

When you start out with a block, you're generally in one of two positions:

1. If I *start out* with pieces X size, what will I get as a finished block?
2. If I want a *finished* block at Y size, how big do I need to cut my pieces.

I find it's much easier to work backward from Position 2, adding 1/2 inch all around to every piece. Otherwise, I often find myself with too-small pieces, that I've inadvertently cut to the finished measurement.

HTH.

Nurse Ratched, whose mind is a terrible thing these days

Thanks, Patti. That was part of the question. I can see now why cutting the set the same width as the group of strips makes sense, I'm lost when it comes to figuring out how wide to cut the original strips. You're right - I started this thinking it was going to be tricky! I wanted a set of strips

Shawn

-- mslibra