Quilt for Nicole’s Sister

Nicole’s sister had asked for a quilt a while back. Quite some time ago, we talked about colors, design and size and, as with everything, I totally forgot what we talked about so I asked her the other night what colors she likes and she said “fall colors”. I immediately thought of this quilt that I had been working on, but it needed to be a bit bigger.

I played around with several ways to make it larger and sent screen shots to Nicole’s sister and this is the design she liked best. On some of the designs, I added more blocks but she chose the one that has the plain blocks inserted. It still needed something else so I tweaked a bit more.

After a bit more tweaking, I came up with this that I think is my final answer!  The pieced sashing seems to fit better. The blocks are busy but the plain blocks kind of “anchor” them. I think it will work out nice and be pretty with the blocks down the center of the bed.

It will be a little over 100″ x 100″. This is the fabric estimate from Electric Quilt.

That’s about 13 yards. By the time I add binding fabric, it will easily take 13 yards. I always buy a little extra so say 14 yards at $10/yard would be $140. I have no idea what backing fabric would cost. I’ve pieced backings for several years .. but I’m guessing it would be at least $50, along with (guessing again) $25 for a batting. This quilt would easily cost $200 to make, and if I were paying to have it quilted, that cold add up to another $150 or $200. This is one reason I have a stash, especially a stash that was purchased when the prices were much lower.

I’m going to say 7 yards for the backing and 14 yards for the top . . 21 yards and I’ll probably use fabric that cost me $4 per   yard so that’s about $84 for the cost of the top and backing. All the batting I have was purchased on sale so I’m going to say it cost me about $10 for the backing and since I have the longarm, I’ll quilt it for “free” (though Vince says each quilt costs about $2,000 since I haven’t used the new longarm very much!) so the total cost, according to my thinking will be about $94 instead of about $350.

If I were replacing the fabric at today’s costs, it would be totally different. I am not replacing fabric as I use it. I figure I will never run out of fabric and if I run short on something I really want, I may buy more or I may use pink or yellow instead of ecru and call it good but this little calculating exercise just reinforced to me why I am so thankful for the fabric stash!