Question 913079
Tina made a quilt that was 8 inches taller than it was wide.
 She then sewed a 4 inch border around the entire quilt.
 If the area of the quilt and its border is 1920 square inches, find the dimensions of the quilt without the border?
:
Let w = the width of the original quilt 
then
(w+8) = the length of the original quilt
:
Sewing a 4" border around the quilt will add 8" to each dimension
therefore
(w+8) * (w+8+8) = 1920
(w+8) * (w+16)  = 1920
FOIL
w^2 + 16w + 8w + 128 = 1920
w^2 + 24w + 128 - 1920 = 0
A quadratic equation
w^2 + 24w - 1792 = 0
you can use the quadratic formula, but this will factor to:
(w-32)(w+56) = 0
The positive solution is all we want here
w = 32" is width of the original quilt
then
32 + 8 = 40" is length