Floaters

[Jenny C.]

Can floaters be added to a rectangle if so what would the formula be. i have managed to make floaters for a square quilt but i can't work out how to do it for a rectangle. all advice gratefully accepted.
Jenny in Oz

[Bonnie J.]

Sue Garman gave us instrctions about floaters in the 2009 BOM. I have done floaters on both square and rectangular quilts using the same formula. Thank God for Sue's instructions though, because my first couple of attempts before her instructions were not "stellar", if you get my drift.

[Jenny C.]

Thanks, I did use Sue's instructions but it didn't work out. Will just have to keep trying and work out what I am doing wrong
Jenny

[Margo C.]

Jenny, please go back and check your math! Sue's formula for floaters definitely works! Can you explain what you think went wrong?

[Jenny C.]

ok here's what i did. the quilt center is 15.5 ins wide and 24 in long, the top and bottom borders are 22 in and the left right borders are 32.5 ins. so i took the measurement of the short borders (21 in) and the width of the quilt center (15.5 ins) subtracted and divided by 2 and added half an inch coming up with 3.25 in wide floaters then it doesn't matter how i turn them i can't get them to fit but if i cut the center of the quilt into a square (15.5 x 15.5) the floaters fit perfectly, so i know it's me and not Sue's instructions but i can't see what i am doing wrong
Jenny in Oz

[Paula D.]

Please explain what floaters are, I can't be the only one!

[Paula D.]

Floater is pretty much a border that you adjust to make an outside border/blocks fit. You don't start with an exact measurement. Like in last years BOM. you had a center, then a bunch of blocks sewn together. Between them is a border. Since no one sew the same way and had different measurements, you had to figure out how wide and long to make your borders (floaters). Make sense????

[Paula D.]

ok here's what i did. the quilt center is 15.5 ins wide and 24 in long, the top and bottom borders are 22 in and the left right borders are 32.5 ins. so i took the measurement of the short borders (21 in) and the width of the quilt center (15.5 ins) subtracted and divided by 2 and added half an inch coming up with 3.25 in wide floaters then it doesn't matter how i turn them i can't get them to fit but if i cut the center of the quilt into a square (15.5 x 15.5) the floaters fit perfectly, so i know it's me and not Sue's instructions but i can't see what i am doing wrong
Jenny in Oz

The only thing I see is you have two different measurements for your short border. first you say 22, then you have 21. when I used the same formula for22, it comes to3.75. then I also used the same formula for the longer measurements and come up with 4.75. So looks like your floater isn't going to be the same width on all 4 sides. HOpe this helps.

[Margo C.]

Jenny, you just did the math for the short set of floaters. You just have to do the math again to get a DIFFERENT WIDTH for the longer sides of your rectangular quilt! You can do this!!

[Paula D.]

Thanks for your kind and informative reply, CJ. Never heard it called that before. Hmmm.

[Jenny C.]

thank you all I wondered if i had to do another set of measurements but wasn't sure. I thought all 4 floaters had to be the same width and couldn't work out how to do this. Will now be able to finish this quilt. It is the first one I have designed myself so was trying hard to get it to look good now I know it will come out fine. Thanks again. It is a great thing to have so much experience, advice and help on tap 24/7.
Jenny in Oz