Cheshirepat

You always ask great thought-provoking questions, Bear! And make me wish I were a better quilter/organizer/crafter than I am!

I am a fabric-gatherer, by nature and I 'kit' up a quilt (mostly they exist in my head for a while), when I find the fabric. I put that fabric in a bin until I'm ready to take it on. My fabrics remain unwashed heathens until I'm ready to go/sew. I don't always wash, if I feel good about the fabric not bleeding (again, I go by feel rather than hard logic and strong habit). If I have designed the pattern, I *do* print it in with the fabric pieces, or place the reference to which book/magazine it came from. Sometimes my design is vague notes and thoughts about how it could go. Usually things solidify when I finally get all the fabric together, I *have* to solidify the pattern and be sure there's enough of everything.

I never cut things up ahead of time, unless it's already in my scrap bin! What if I change my mind!?! Even when I did my scrap bin flip-and-sew quilt just recently, I had to cut up more as I went. so pre-cutting only got me so far. I decided it would be a much bigger scrap quilt than originally planned. Meh, I guess I like being able to modify...

I might include binding fabric -especially if I go out of my way to get something special (like the candy cane stripe on a Christmas quilt) I don't include the rest of the goods, batting, thread, etc. as I assume I will have *something* in the stable that will work. I've usually got 2-3 pre cut batting packages around, and any amount of scrap pieces if need be. I can see where my methods could use some more discipline, but so far -with the limited room I have for things, it works out pretty well. I can go over to a stack of 'proto-quilt kits' and see what whets my appetite!

Railroadersbrat

I did a kit-up for my sister's DWR, minus backing and batting and I really liked it a lot. It was nice to have everything together so when I started on it, I had everything I need. I used to just get enough fabric to get a quilt started, then buy more later but I found that my UFOs were getting out of hand because over half of them always had the note 'don't have enough fabric to finish' in them.

The other issue I got rid of was not cutting all my pieces at once. I wasn't strong enough yet in my rotary skills that I felt I was losing accuracy by cutting everything all at once, plus I was excited to get the quilt going. Now when I make a kit, I get everything together I need, I do all the cutting I need to do, then re-kit accordingly. It's double the work, but at least I know I have everything together, in order, ready to go so when the big day of starting it arrives, I can just sit down and sew.

I'm hoping to change things this year by adding the backing and the batting to the kit, but it's just going to have to be a wait and see type situation. I've finally built up enough background fabric with my Muslin, black and white fabric bundles that I think I can swing the backing and batting, but until that day comes, I'm going to continue just working on the quilt top fabric, thread, quilting stencils, etc.

Iceblossom

I was looking at some of my picture directories and I found these shots of a collection phase project. Since I mostly shop sales and thrift stores and I have some pretty strange ideas, it can take me awhile to collect the fabrics. I have declared this one as no more collecting/if I don't have enough fabric by now I have more problems than I thought.

For this one it is "blue and white fabrics with snowflakes." I'm going to make nine Lone Star sampler blocks, each different and instead of the more usual radiating colors, will be made to look like snowflakes. I know mathematically snow flakes and lone stars have different numbers of points, but in quilt world we can make magic happen!

I have everything now, including a back -- but it isn't quite yet kitted and definitely not a WiP or a UFO (whatever helps me sleep at night). I have some purging to do, like there is golden snowflake fabric. And I have a lot of prewashing to do. Then, when I kit it I'll have a rough understanding of how many strips of fabric I'll need, I'll make sure the smaller pieces are usable lengths and then start cutting down the strips. Nice thing is all the diamonds are exactly the same. Still a kit, but moving up the rankings towards WiP.

Cheshirepat

Lol, Iceblossom, I have a 'blue and white with snowflakes' collection started as well! Even some of the ones you showed! I like your plan, but have never attempted a Lone Star pattern. I'm intimidated by them! I haven't even decided what my lil collection will be yet.