How much fabric do I actually need? I've always been asking myself this question. From one side, I don't want to buy less fabric than I need. From another side, I don't like the idea of having lots of fabric left, but not enough to sew something else. Quite a complicated story, isn't it? That's why I always think (and measure!) twice not only before cutting, but also before buying.

I've noticed that even regular patterns are requiring much less fabric than it's recommend. For example, I've bought a ridiculous amount of fabric for my Vintage Vogue dress. In the instructions it was recommended to use almost 5 meters of fabric! And I've bought it... Needless to say that I was left with such a big piece of that material, I can easily sew another dress now.

I've had the same problem with BurdaStyle.com patterns too. I don't want to blame those brands though, it's quite understandable. It's better to have more than less.

What you can do is to measure all the pattern pieces of your project. Don't forget that all of them will have a 1.5-3 cm seaming allowance. Keep in mind that most of the details should be placed along the grainline and some of them should be cut on fold.

But if don't like the idea of counting as much as having more fabric than you need, keep in mind those numbers. For most of the project you'll need:

Do you calculate how much fabric you need for your project? How?