Advise/enabling

Charlotte, decorating is not on my list of favorite indoor sports but I do watch (somewhat) the tv decorators. Very often they will take a print and use a stripe, plaid, smaller print and assorted solids and such to 'do' a room. I don't think you would want to do an entire room with bed skirt, table topper, valance and quilt all from the same collection. It would be just too much. So, I suggest buying only what your budget is comfortable with. (Where are the Grammar Police?) As your room evolves, it's just a sure bet that you will be able to discover lovely things that you will enjoy using. IMHO Polly

"Charlotte Hippen" asked >I need some advise from all you knowledgeable ladies (and the gents out

Polly is absolutely right! Also, the amount you use in the quilt could be the leftovers - that's what used to happen anyway!! Just calculate what you need for the pieces that will not be patchwork, plus a little to use in the quilt and let the rest of the quilt take care of itself from your stash. . In message , Charlotte Hippen writes

Since moving to GA, most of my paid sewing is in home dec stuff so I know what Polly & Patti are talking about. **IF** the fabric line has been properly designed, all of the colors are coordinating AND there is a difference in scale of the designs on the fabric. This is how you can mix florals, plaids, checks, etc. and not have them clash with each other. If you have a large floral, medium plaid and small check in coordinating colors, it will look great together. The problem is when you use widely differing fabric prints that are all the same scale. Charlotte -- if you are doing the window treatment, table toppers, bed skirt, shams, etc. in the designer print fabrics, you might want to make your quilt predominately solids &/or tone on tone fabrics with your decorator fabrics as accents. Let the amount of decorator fabric you have left after making the other items determine the quilt block pattern. With all the other things made of the decorator fabric, you really won't need a lot of it for the quilt itself. This way, when you are ready to make the quilt, you can take swatches of your decorator fabrics with you when you go shopping for the tone on tone (or whatever you decide) fabrics. CiaoMeow >^;;^<

This collection has that variety in it. The one I love is a large rose floral. There are 2 different tots, a cream and a green, and then another that is done mainly in reds from the roses in a design that I don't really know how to describe. I don't remember what the others in the collection are, and I haven't received my squishy from my mother yet. The nice thing about using the collection will be ease of matching. I know that the green tot matches the green in the floral, and the reds are the same as those in the roses, etc. We'll see what the others are like when I get them, but hopefully I will only have to add one or two other fabric to it. I am getting as much of the roses as I can, and will have to figure out what to get of the rest.

I really don't have a stash so I'll have to plan it all out an purchase my fabrics for it. I thought I had seen somewhere that for a quilt say queen sized with 4 fabrics you should get xyds of each (assuming that they are about equally represented in the quilt). I guess I'll just have to do some internet searching. I just thought someone here might know or know where to find my info. Thanks for the reply Pat.

The fabrics that I remember from the colleciton are like this. The one that started it all (my fav.) is a large scale rose floral, 2 are tone on tones and the other I rember I can't really describe the pattern well but it is a small scale all over design done in the colors in the roses with hints of the green and I think some cream. The shape of the all over fish scales only really classed up so it doesn't look like fish scales. That's not a good description, but that's all I've got. It is not one that would look good in large amounts but, it would make a really nice narrow stripe on the bottom of a bed skirt and maybe some trim on the valance, etc. The fact that they are in a collection to gether does just what you said, I know the colors match and will work together. I'm hoping to only have to add a couple fabrics from outside of the colleciton to get more variety, depending on what the others look like. I won't know that until I get my squishy from my mom though. Hopefully it will come today.

It depends a lot on how many pieces are in the thing, and the geometry of the pieces. I'll use squares for ease of calculation; odd shaped pieces make things worse.

Let's say your Queen sized quilt is 90" x 100", and is made of 10" (finished) squares. You'll need 90 total squares, or at most 23 of a color. You'll get 4 squares from a width of fabric, so you need a 63" length of each fabric.

Now let's say the same quilt is made of 1" finished squares. You'll need

9000 squares, or 2250 of each color. I'd figure on 28 squares from a width of fabric (because you need to cut them to 1.5" unfinished), so you need 121.5" length of each fabric. A bit of a difference. :)

Why so much difference? It's the seam allowance. In the first example, you're losing about 10% of the fabric area in seam allowance (plus a little in waste in the last row you cut). In the second example, you're losing about 50% in the seam allowance because the seam allowance is bigger in comparison to the finished size. Odd shapes make this worse because you can't tile the plane with them (a geometry term that really means you'll have lots of waste.) Drunkard's path is a good example of this.

HTH!

Thanks Kathy. I guess I'm just too new to this. But that's why I ask you more experienced quilters. I did think about the number of seam allowances making a difference, but I hadn't quite made the jump to the size of blocks/pieces adding that much difference in the amount used up by seams. Maybe I *will* have to pick a pattern or at least find a couple and figure out requirements for them and purchase my fabrics based on that rather than waiting til later to decide my pattern.

Take it from me -- you will be MUCH easier with a purchased bed skirt than trying to make one yourself. I hate gathering up all that fabric even tho' I have a number of tricks I use to make it easier. When I make bed skirts for clients, I *always* make sure they know they have the option to use a tailored one instead of a ruffled one --- LOL! If you want to add the special fabric as another layer to the bed skirt, you can always make up the ruffle and sew it to the bottom of the purchased skirt and inch or two above the hem. Most purchased bed skirts have just a tiny rolled hem. You could turn up an inch or two for a better hem on the purchased skirt and then sew your decorator fabric ruffle right at the point where you have sewn the new hem. Whatever you do, I am glad to hear you are buying as much of your favourite fabric as your pocketbook will allow. There's nothing worse than falling in love with a fabric, buying what you *think* is enough and then deciding you want to do other things with it! It never fails

-- if this happens you KNOW there won't be any more fabric at the store when you go to buy more!!! Have fun and make sure you let us know what you decide to make, OK? CiaoMeow >^;;^<

PAX, Tia Mary >^;;^< (RCTQ Queen of Kitties) Angels can't show their wings on earth but nothing was ever said about their WHISKERS! Visit my Photo albums at