What a wonderful thread of conversation! Well, for us older folks, anyway! LOL! Yep.. I do remember the days before the fancy tools! My first quilts were cut out with sissors and I marked around cardboard templates with plain old #2 pencil! The fabrics were left over from making clothes for myself and my kids, and what my sister-in-law had left from sewing for herself and her kids, and what my mom had left over... or wherever else I could get it! It wouldn't have occurred to me to go buy fabric for the express purpose of making a quilt back then. Ahhhhh... now I love my GO! cutter and my longarm and my wonderful cotton fabrics, but I still remember those "good old days". LOL!