I rarely buy kits, mainly because I'll end up substituting different fabrics that I like better. I used to do civil war BOM and we got fabric with it, but I rarely used more than one of them if that because I liked what I had better. To say the least, that class not only taught me alot about the civil war because the teacher was a buff and would tell us about different things that happened and they were facts and I also knew every store that had great civil war fabric and now have a great stash of them. I just did an embroidery retreat and they offered a kit for the fabric and didn't charge extra to put it together so due to lack of time I bought it. As I was pulling my fabric I started seeing fabric in my own stash that I liked better and so alot of the quilt is totally me. Including the outside rows of blocks that were also civil war blocks, they just happened to be the same size of the class that I had taken a few yrs ago and never put together. I used them instead of making more and so my quilt is all my choices. The retreat had two of each for the civil war blocks but I had enough that they are all different and in each corner are reverse applique blocks done for that error. So it really depends. I've heard some say they've gotten kits and the fabric cuts weren't correct. I have been told that you should always cut your largest pieces first and then cut the smaller parts so that it equals out. If you cut the smaller pieces first you may not have enough to cut the larger ones; just something to think about.