I've purchased several quilts from stores, each for $50 or less, for use in guest bedrooms and for private picnics.
- When my husband and I go out for our personal picnics, I want a very home-y feel to our event. With the store-bought quilt, I don't have to think much about stains or other damage. When one of my guilds needs a quilt for a backdrop for an outdoors display, these picnic quilts are the ones I offer to the purpose.
- My several infant, pre-K and K grandchildren jump on the beds, use what occurs to them to use to build forts, throw off the covers during the night onto the floor, and generally act like young kids. They forget basic instructions and house rules in passionate moments of enthusiasm and creativity. Kids and stains and rips and tears happen. This will be outgrown as they move into primary grades on a full-time, full day basis, and as their own sensitivities and cause-and-effect processing develops further.
- We have houseguests who I had no hand or say in raising, and who are not as respectful or mindful as they could be with things, but since they are family, they still deserve softer touches, such as quilts, but their room is decorated with commercially made quilts during their stay.
When these houseguests and the grandkids go home, out comes the "good stuff" to reappoint these rooms, and the doors remain open so I can look at "my" quilts, love them ,enjoy them, and change them according to the season, holiday or whim.