...its been a little quiet around here

Which means that I have been sewing and thinking about sewing but not machine sewing (hence the quiet). I will have a cautionary tale that will explain the no machine, soon hopefully, but I need to be home in the daylight to get some pictures before I can post that post.

But one of the thinking tasks I have been working on is the design for the quilt I will be making that is inspired by a crochet blanket and first mentioned in this post.

I did get a kind volunteer to crochet a sample of the units and I have been catching some small moments here and there for the last few months to draw up a plan for the quilt and re-size the motifs to a size that can be sewn and will fit together well. It was a true test of my maths ability.

I spent an hour or two finishing that step last night and then got to thinking about some of the construction methods. It will end up being a bit of a skills sampler I think with some normal piecing, some foundation paper piecing and some appliqué (in one case this might be present in one motif/block).

Which brings me to the point of this post actually - does anyone know how I can draw, on the computer, a shape to a specific size - where it will finish in an 1/8" inch increment.

This one will finish at 2.5" but I got thinking about it because I need one of the blocks to have four quarters that finish at 1 6/8" plus the 1/4" seam allowance (see the maths workout) and then be able to draw a specific size shape inside it. I've tried in Word because that has worked for me before but even when I change the unit of measurements to inches the best I can do is two decimal places (.25 = 1/4") and .125 is automatically changed to .13.

I could draw it, scan it, hope it stays the same size and copy it but there must be a way - cause I've seen the foundations other blogger's do.

Help! Please!