As for choosing to do things the hard or easy way...when I was a newlywed learning to cook, I wanted to do everything the "old-fashioned" way, or from scratch. I thought that made it better. Now, I do things according to my time constraints or my mood. Sometimes I bake a cake from scratch, sometimes I use a mix. i remember asking my grandmother how she made cornbread, and being a little disappointed when she told me, "honey, get you a package of martha white cornbread mix!" . So.. strip-piecing sometimes, sewing squares sometimes... whatever! The end result is a quilt I made myself! :D