Fabric yardage calculator
Fabric requirement follows from how many pieces fit across the roll, not from total area. Add the seam allowance to every edge of one piece, divide the usable roll width by the piece width and round DOWN to a whole number — that is how many fit side by side. Divide the number of pieces you need by that count and round UP for the number of rows, then multiply the rows by the cut length of one piece. The calculator below does this in metric or imperial, matches a pattern repeat where there is one, and shows the strip left unused beside your pieces, which you pay for either way.
Your pieces and your fabric
Usable width
1.5 m
1¾ yd · the pieces need 1.44 m
- Cut size of each piece
- 48 cm × 48 cm1.5 cm added to every edge
- Pieces across the width
- 2from 140 cm usable
- Rows to cut
- 3 × 48 cm6 pieces in 3 rows
- Strip left beside the pieces
- 44 cmbought whether you use it or not
- Cloth that ends up in the pieces
- 66%of the area you pay for
That is 31% of the roll width, paid for and not cut into. A narrower roll, a slightly smaller piece, or one more piece across would all recover it — worth a look before ordering an expensive cloth.
How we got this
- Cut size of one piece — 48 cm × 48 cm45 cm × 45 cm finished, + 1.5 cm on every edge
- Pieces across the width — 2 pieces⌊140 cm ÷ 48 cm⌋
- Rows of pieces needed — 3 rows⌈6 pieces ÷ 2 across⌉
- Fabric for the rows — 144 cm3 × 48 cm
- Total fabric required — 144 cm3 rows, nothing to match
- Buy, rounded up (nearest 10 cm) — 150 cm144 cm rounded up to the next 0.1 m
Why the width decides everything
Fabric is sold as a long rectangle of fixed width. You choose the length and you get no say at all in the width, which means a project is not an area problem — it is a packing problem with one dimension nailed down.
Work in area and the answer will be wrong in a way that costs money. Six 45 cm squares are 1.2 m² of cloth, which sounds like under a metre of 140 cm fabric. Lay them out and only two fit side by side, so you need three rows and 1.5 m — over two square metres, most of a square metre of which is a strip down one edge that never gets cut into.
That strip is the thing to look at. It is bought, paid for and folded into the price of the project whether it is used or not, and the only levers on it are the size of the piece, the number across, and the width of the roll you buy from.
A worked example
Six cushion panels finishing at 45 × 45 cm, sewn at 1.5 cm, cut from a 140 cm roll of plain fabric. These are the calculator's starting values and the table is generated by it.
| Step | Working | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Cut size of one piece | 45 cm × 45 cm finished, + 1.5 cm on every edge | 48 cm × 48 cm |
| Pieces across the width | ⌊140 cm ÷ 48 cm⌋ | 2 pieces |
| Rows of pieces needed | ⌈6 pieces ÷ 2 across⌉ | 3 rows |
| Fabric for the rows | 3 × 48 cm | 144 cm |
| Total fabric required | 3 rows, nothing to match | 144 cm |
| Buy, rounded up (nearest 10 cm) | 144 cm rounded up to the next 0.1 m | 150 cm |
Each panel is cut at 48 cm square, 2 fit across the roll, and six panels therefore take 3 rows of 48 cm — 1.44 m, rounded up to 1.5 m. Beside those two columns sits a 44 cm strip running the whole length, which is why only 66% of what you pay for ends up in the cushions.
The same six pieces, on different rolls
Because the count across is a whole number, roll width matters far more than the difference between 137 cm and 140 cm suggests. Every row below is the same six panels, cut the same way.
| Roll width | Across | Rows | Buy | Unused strip |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 90 cm | 1 | 6 | 2.9 m | 42 cm |
| 112 cm | 2 | 3 | 1.5 m | 16 cm |
| 137 cm | 2 | 3 | 1.5 m | 41 cm |
| 140 cm | 2 | 3 | 1.5 m | 44 cm |
| 150 cm | 3 | 2 | 1 m | 6 cm |
| 280 cm | 5 | 2 | 1 m | 40 cm |
A 137 cm roll and a 140 cm roll take exactly the same length here, because neither can quite fit a third 48 cm column. A 150 cm roll fits three, and the job drops from three rows to two. That is the whole argument for checking the width before the price: the cheaper cloth per metre is frequently the more expensive project.
When pieces can be turned sideways
A rectangle that will not fit across the roll one way round may fit the other. The calculator tries both and takes whichever needs less cloth — but only when turning is genuinely allowed, and there are two separate reasons it is not.
A directional fabric has a right way up. A velvet or a brushed cotton has a nap that catches the light differently along its length; a printed scene has a sky at one end. Rotate one piece and it will visibly differ from the piece beside it, which is worse than buying an extra metre.
A pattern repeat blocks it for a different reason: a vertical repeat only repeats vertically. Turn a piece ninety degrees and the design now runs across it instead of down it, so no amount of matching will make it agree with its neighbour. When either applies, the calculator lays everything upright and tells you which of the two stopped it.
A useful third case sits between them. Some fabrics are described as non-directional but have a weave that reads differently in the two directions under raking light — a matt linen is the usual culprit. If in doubt, hold two pieces at right angles by a window before committing the whole roll to a rotated layout.
What to do with the strip down the side
- Design it out. Losing a centimetre from the finished size sometimes fits another column across, which is worth far more than the centimetre. The roll-width table above is the same idea from the other direction.
- Fill the last row. If the final row is only part used, the pieces that would complete it cost no extra length whatsoever. A spare cover, a matching bolster, a set of napkins — the cheapest additions you will ever make are the ones that fit in cloth already bought.
- Buy a different width. The same design in a 150 cm roll instead of 140 cm can change the layout completely, and many furnishing fabrics are offered in more than one width.
- Keep it deliberately. Piping, ties, tabs, binding and pockets all come out of narrow strips, so an offcut you planned for is not waste at all. What you do not want is one you did not know about until the cloth arrived.
How to measure for this
- Measure one finished piece. Take the width and the length of a single piece as it will be when it is made up, not as it will be cut. The calculator adds the allowances.
- Decide the seam allowance. Whatever you sew at, applied to every edge. 1.5 cm is standard dressmaking, 1 cm is common for home furnishing, and quilters work at a quarter inch.
- Count the pieces. Every rectangle you need to cut, including the backs. A cushion cover with a plain back is two pieces, not one.
- Take the roll width from the label. And subtract anything you cannot cut into — a heavy selvedge, or the width a washable cotton will lose in a pre-wash — under "Usable width".
- Read the length, then look at the strip. The headline is what to buy. The offcut strip beside it is the part of the roll your pieces never touch, and it is often the number that changes your mind about the piece size.
What this assumes
This is the general-purpose tool: identical rectangles, cut from one roll, laid out in rows. That covers cushion covers, flat blinds, panels, table linen, bag pieces and most quilting cuts. It is deliberately not a project calculator, and there are four things it does not do.
- Pieces of different sizes. Real garment and upholstery layouts nest unlike shapes together, and no general formula covers that. Work the largest pieces here first, then treat the remainder as a second job.
- Curved or shaped pieces. A curve is calculated from the rectangle that encloses it, which is what a cutting layout uses anyway — but the offcut figure will understate what you can actually reuse.
- Gathered curtains. Fullness has to be applied before any of this and joined widths behave differently from pieces laid side by side, so the curtain fabric calculator and the fullness calculator handle those.
- Shrinkage. There is no shrinkage percentage here, because the honest place to account for it on a general project is the usable width and a pre-wash before cutting. Wash the cloth, measure what you actually have, then calculate.
Working from a pattern written for a different roll width? The fabric width converter handles that conversion and flags when the area equivalence behind it stops being trustworthy. If your fabric has a design to match, the pattern repeat calculator works through what the repeat costs on its own.
Common questions
- Why can I not just work out the total area?
- Because fabric comes off a roll of fixed width, and the pieces have to fit across that width in whole numbers. Six 45 cm pieces are 1.2 m² of cloth, but on a 140 cm roll only two fit side by side and the answer is 1.5 m — 2.1 m² — with the rest bought as an unused strip.
- Does the seam allowance go on every edge?
- Yes, and that is why each dimension grows by twice the allowance. A 45 cm finished cushion panel with 1.5 cm seams is cut at 48 cm, not 46.5 cm. Entering the finished size and letting the calculator add the allowances is the safer way round, because it is the step most often forgotten.
- Can I turn the pieces sideways to fit more across?
- On a plain fabric with no nap, yes, and the calculator will do it when it saves cloth. It refuses on a directional fabric or one with a pattern repeat, because a rotated piece has the design running the wrong way across it — which is a different piece, not a cleverer layout.
- What can I do about the strip left over?
- Either use it or design it away. A wide offcut usually means one more piece would have fitted across with a slightly smaller finished size, or that a different roll width suits this project better. The calculator shows the strip width and what share of the roll it represents so the choice is visible before you order.
- Does this work for curtains?
- Only for flat panels. Gathered curtains need a fullness ratio applied before any of this, and their widths are joined rather than laid side by side, so the curtain fabric calculator handles them instead. Use this one for cushions, blinds, panels, table linen and anything else cut as plain rectangles.
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