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Thinking about fabric requirements

Fabric can be thought of as square inches.

If the quilt you are making is going to be 80" x 80", that would be a total of 80 x 80 = 6400 square inches.

So, we know going into the project that the total amount of fabric for the quilt top will be over 6400 in².

But, we have to allow for waste.  Where we are piecing, there is seam allowance to figure in... let's add 5% for that.  Then what about pattern placement... add 10%.  Human error? Let's add 10%.

So....

6400 x 25% = 1600 in² extra, totaling 8000 in²

Now, how many yards is that?

8000 / 42 = approx 190 inches linearly

190 / 36" per yard = 5.28 yards

So, the total yardage we've estimated for the quilt top is approx 5 and a quarter yards.

The above is just an example of a way of thinking about fabric requirements... YMMV.