To compare two layouts, lay the same pattern pieces on each width on paper first and measure the total length each layout consumes, including the unusable gaps. The wider fabric usually wins on length but not always on price: multiply each layout's yardage by its price per yard and buy the lower total cost, provided the widest piece fits the narrower width.
Why a layout comparison, not a conversion table
Conversion charts assume every garment wastes the same fraction of its fabric. It doesn't. Waste lives in the gaps: the strip beside a wide piece that nothing fits into, the half-row left over at the end. Those gaps depend on your pieces and your width, which is why the only honest comparison is to lay out the actual garment both ways and measure. The method below takes twenty minutes with pattern tissue or paper and settles the question for the fabric you are actually choosing between. The measurements it needs — assumed width, usable width, widest piece, side-by-side count, longest piece — are the five set out in the refreshed yardage guide linked below; do that measurement pass first.
Setting up a fair comparison
- Same pieces, same rules. Both layouts use the identical piece set, the same grain rules and the same orientation rules. If a fabric is directional, it leaves this comparison — that is a different problem, covered in the nap-layout comparison linked at the end.
- Usable width, not bolt width. Subtract roughly 1–2 inches for selvages and uneven edges: plan on 58 inches usable from a 60-inch fabric, 43 inches from a 45-inch.
- Record rows, not impressions. For each layout, write down each row: which pieces sit in it, the row's length (its longest piece), and the unused width left over.
The worked garment
Use the same dress as the yardage guide's substitution example, so the two articles can be read together. The pattern calls for 3 yards of 60-inch fabric. Its pieces: two skirt panels 40 inches wide × 36 inches long; a bodice front and back, each 22 × 18 inches; two sleeves, each 16 × 24 inches; facings totalling a 12-inch row.
Layout A — 60-inch fabric (58 usable)
- Row 1: skirt panel (40″) + sleeve (16″) = 56″ wide → row length 36″
- Row 2: skirt panel (40″) + sleeve (16″) = 56″ wide → row length 36″
- Row 3: bodice front (22″) + bodice back (22″) = 44″ wide → row length 18″
- Row 4: facings → row length 12″
Total consumed: 102 inches = 2.83 yards. (The pattern's 3-yard call includes its own margin over this figure.)
Layout B — 45-inch fabric (43 usable)
- Row 1: skirt panel alone (40″) → 36″
- Row 2: skirt panel alone (40″) → 36″
- Row 3: bodice front (22″) + sleeve (16″) = 38″ wide → row length 24″ (the sleeve sets the row length)
- Row 4: bodice back (22″) + sleeve (16″) = 38″ wide → row length 24″
- Row 5: facings → 12″
Total consumed: 132 inches = 3.67 yards → buy 3¾ yards.
Waste accounting
Count as waste only cloth that cannot serve another purpose: slivers under about 6 inches in both dimensions, and the irregular gaps inside rows. Count as remnant — not waste — any piece big enough for a future project, and say so in your notes, because the cost formula below treats remnants as worth zero and you should know that assumption is in there.
In Layout A, the notable gap is the 14-inch strip beside the bodice row: at 18 inches long it is a genuine remnant (a child's garment front, a bag panel). In Layout B, the skirt rows leave only a 3-inch strip — true waste — but the bodice-and-sleeve rows leave usable 5-inch strips along 24 inches, marginal remnants. Layout B consumes 30 more inches of length across a narrower width; in area, the two layouts use nearly the same cloth, arranged differently. That is the usual result, and it is why length alone never settles the question.
The cost comparison
The formula is deliberately simple:
Total cost = yardage to buy × price per yard.
With illustrative prices — say the 60-inch fabric is $14.00 per yard and the 45-inch is $10.00 per yard — Layout A costs 3 × $14.00 = $42.00 and Layout B costs 3.75 × $10.00 = $37.50. The narrower fabric wins on price while losing on yardage. Reverse the prices and the answer reverses; that sensitivity is exactly why the comparison must be run with the real prices of the two fabrics on your table. (Fabric prices in Linda's apparel collections are often per fractional-yard cut — convert the specific product's cut price to a per-yard figure from its product page before running this formula.)
Decision rule and exceptions
Buy the lower total cost, with three exceptions that override arithmetic:
- The widest piece must fit. If any piece is wider than the narrower fabric's usable width and cannot be seamed in keeping with the design, the narrow layout is disqualified at any price.
- Remnant plans change the value. If you have a real use for Layout A's wider remnants, credit them mentally against its price — but only for a named project, not a vague "someday."
- Directional fabrics leave this comparison. One-way prints and nap add a constraint that changes both layouts; use the directional comparison linked below instead.
Fabrics for the comparison
Run the two layouts on the real candidates. In the apparel fabric collection, verified garment fabrics at genuinely different widths include the Light Green Rayon Solid Challis (100% rayon, 55″ wide), the White Cotton Crinkled Double Gauze (100% cotton, 52″ wide) and the Ivory Cotton Medium Wale Corduroy (100% cotton, 43″ wide). A comparison only means something when both fabrics are otherwise right for the garment — drape and weight suitability come first, cost second.
Limitations
The worked figures are an arithmetic demonstration on stated piece dimensions, not a cut garment. The formula counts purchased yardage, not cutting time, and it values remnants at zero unless you decide otherwise under exception 2.
Keep reading
More from Fabric Math Made Easy. Prerequisite: the width-substitution measurements in the fabric yardage guide. Next: comparing two layouts for directional and nap fabrics, where pieces cannot be rotated.
