For those of you with Accuquilt experience, I would love your feedback on this.

A lovely woman is making my Sweet Tea Pattern as part of a quilt along and ran into a snag. The pattern is written for rotary cutting. She self-admittedly is not good with a rotary cutter. To compensate for this, she bravely has been figuring out how to make it with AccuQuilt dies.

She was doing splendidly until we were making a very simple block – the Half Square Triangle (HST). At this point, we ran into a snag. She called me to tell me she ran out of fabric. I was perplexed as I am usually generous with my fabric requirements.

We talked about it, trying to figure out where the disconnect was. Based upon our conversation, AccuQuilt is generally more fabric efficient, because the dies eliminate the dog ears. This saves a bit of fabric each time. With this in mind, she should have had extra fabric. But that was not the case.

We did the math. We estimated the each 3 1/2-inch strip should make twelve 3 1/2-inch squares, assuming 42-inch Width of Fabric (WOF) strip. Each square should make two 2 1/2-inch finished HST. So, a strip should make twenty-four HST. Everyone agree so far?

However, she was only able to get eighteen HST from a strip.

At this point, I was thoroughly confused. Based upon math and standard cutting, she had plenty of fabric. Not to mention, I have made the quilt…

This is when I asked her to explain how the AccuQuilt cutting worked. She used an accordion folding method. Apparently, you fold the fabric back and forth on itself before putting into the cutter. This is much like accordion folding for paper dolls. She felt she had very little waste.

She is a good sport and decided to do an experiment. She cut the strips into 3 1/2-inch squares. Subsequently, she cut the squares into triangles for the HST. Using this method, she was able to make the twenty-four HST.

Has anyone else noticed this discrepancy when using accordion folding??

Please let me know!

Happy Quilting