Question

Jacob wants to make a quilt for his baby cousin. The quilt needs to be 3 3/4 feet long. His cousin's room is rainbow-themed, and he wants to use strips of colorful fabric to make a striped quilt to match. He finds specialty fabric that is sold in pre-cut strips. Each fabric strip is 6 inches, or 1/2 of a foot, wide. Jacob plans to stitch the strips side by side together to make the length of the quilt. How many fabric strips will it take to make the quilt?

Answer 1

Jacob will need 8 fabric strips to create a quilt that is 3 3/4 feet long, as each fabric strip is 1/2 foot wide. He will have to round up from 7.5 strips to a whole number since he cannot use a half strip.

Step-by-step explanation:

Jacob wants to create a quilt that is 3 3/4 feet long using pre-cut fabric strips, each measuring 6 inches or 1/2 foot in width. To determine how many strips are needed, the length of the quilt must be divided by the width of each fabric strip. Since there are 4 halves in a whole (since 6 inches is half of a foot), and Jacob needs a quilt that is 3 wholes and 3 quarters long (which is equivalent to 3 × 4 quarters + 3 quarters = 15 quarters), the total number of fabric strips he will require is calculated as follows:

3 3/4 feet = 3 feet + 3/4 foot

3 3/4 feet = (3 × 4)/4 + 3/4

3 3/4 feet = 12/4 + 3/4

3 3/4 feet = 15/4 feet

Since each strip is 1/2 foot wide, he needs:

15/4 feet ÷ 1/2 foot per strip = 15/4 ÷ 2/1 = 15/2 = 7.5 strips

Because he cannot use half a strip, Jacob will need to use 8 fabric strips to create a quilt of the desired length. He will have a half strip worth of fabric leftover after completing the quilt.