{"id":71179,"date":"2026-06-13T07:07:03","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T14:07:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/artquiltmaker.com\/blog\/?p=71179"},"modified":"2026-06-11T10:37:35","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T17:37:35","slug":"hello-pythagoras","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artquiltmaker.com\/blog\/2026\/06\/hello-pythagoras\/","title":{"rendered":"Hello Pythagoras"},"content":{"rendered":"

Do you know that feeling when you step into a hole and everything tilts. That happened to me, without the sprained ankle, when I asked DH a simple question.<\/p>\n

\"Boxing<\/a>
Boxing corners \ud83d\ude41<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I was working on the Open Wide pouches I talked about the other day<\/a>. Anna from Noodlehead<\/a> has makers line up the corner seams, sewing then cutting off a bit to box the corners. I prefer to cut out a box<\/a> and then do the lining up.<\/p>\n

I asked him how to find the number to cut out the box from the “lining up the seams and cutting off a bit” number.<\/p>\n

DH said “Pythagorean theorem”.<\/p>\n

Holy smokes!<\/p>\n

That &*^%$ math! He showed me the theorem. We talked through it and I understood a bit more about how it worked. Am I an expert? No. No, I am not.<\/p>\n

I am really annoyed, though. If I had been shown how to make a pouch, then given this problem I would have understood the concept. Instead math teachers throughout my education wrote lines of numbers and letters on a chalkboard that all looked like gobbledy gook to me. Now I get it. Years too late to do more than squeak by in every math class I ever took after 3rd grade. Sigh.<\/p>\n

\"Thanks<\/a>
Thanks to www.inchcalculator.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

OK, so here it is. Remember, I am not an expert, so your mileage my vary.<\/p>\n

The key number is the number Anna said to cut off after lining up the points. It was 4.5 inches. <\/p>\n

The triangle has to be a right triangle, which means that one corner is 90 degrees. Your formula works like this:<\/p>\n

a\u00b2 + b\u00b2 = c\u00b2<\/p>\n

a=b<\/p>\n

a\u00b2 + a\u00b2 = c\u00b2<\/p>\n

2a\u00b2 = c\u00b2<\/p>\n

c=4.5 inches<\/p>\n

\n

In numbers this formula looks like:<\/p>\n

4.5\u00b2 =2a\u00b2<\/p>\n

some math using the calculator<\/p>\n

20.25 =2a\u00b2<\/p>\n

10 1\/8 =2a\u00b2<\/p>\n

3.28=a<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

I looked at the number given in the small and medium sized Open Wide pouches and did the match. I came up with 4 (medium) and 3.5 (small). 3.28 isn’t a great number for quiltmaking or bagmaking, so I rounded. I found the Open Wides came out a bit of a weird shape. Still useful, but a little odd. I’ll have to play with the formula bit and I think rounding down might be the way to go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Do you know that feeling when you step into a hole and everything tilts. That happened to me, without the sprained ankle, when I asked DH a simple question. I was working on the Open Wide pouches I talked about the other day. Anna from Noodlehead has makers line up the corner seams, sewing then … Continue reading “Hello Pythagoras”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[558],"tags":[351,353,255],"class_list":["post-71179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-558","tag-learning","tag-process","tag-project-bag"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artquiltmaker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artquiltmaker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artquiltmaker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artquiltmaker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artquiltmaker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71179"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/artquiltmaker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71179\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71263,"href":"https:\/\/artquiltmaker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71179\/revisions\/71263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artquiltmaker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artquiltmaker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artquiltmaker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}