The Backing Dilemma

Oh, dear. I have been sitting at my desk for the past 30 minutes crunching numbers for a backing. I'm a little frustrated, to say the least. It's almost easier to just follow the directions and buy a huge chunk of fabric and piece it the way you're supposed to. However, I decided to be difficult on this particular quilt. I decided I wanted it fully pieced. Right then. In crunching numbers, I don't know if I have enough patriotic fabric to pull it off. That's pretty interesting considering I have about 9-10 yards of it in my stash. So then you're probably thinking, "Why in the world would it take that much?!" Well, it's because I don't want to quilt it all in one huge piece. I mean, I only have a normal sewing machine and it is a twin-sized quilt. I'm not 100% sure how large "Study in Blue" ended up being, but I had a heck of a time quilting that critter. As a matter of fact, I got so fed up with it that it took me almost 4 YEARS to make! I really don't want that to happen with this one. Then again, this backing is about to drive me insane. LOL

So, then I started thinking, "Well, what if I changed how the sections were divided? What if I did it in larger chunks?" Same amount of fabric needed as the smaller pieces. Okay then... "What if I did it in large strips? You know, all the width with a small bit of the length?" Well, less fabric needed. Great! Maybe I'll do that. Umm... That's still 77" long even though it's only 27" wide. You'd think I'd still grab at that, huh? I'm silly like that sometimes. I'm being thrown by that whole 77" thing. Well, that and I was so jazzed that I had a section finished that it's making me sad that now it's not finished and it needs a lot more work before it's ready. Oh, well. The way I'm procrastinating on this quilt, it's not that big of a deal. LOL

I wonder why quilters always forget how long it takes to make a quilt. We see the finished product and then we think, "Oh, that didn't take all that long to make." We forgot all the washing, ironing (I know, it's supposed to be pressing), measuring, cutting, piecing, more pressing, etc. We forget that the quilt we just finished has 100s of hours worth of work in it. Silly quilters. Fast quilts are only for companies that sell in large chain stores. LOL

Okay. Well, I guess I'll "suck it up" and just do it in full width strips and call it good. It's better than doing the entire thing all at once, right? The only problem now is that I'm not sure I want to do the back in 7" blocks. Now, I think I might use strips... LOL Time to go figure that out now! Ugh. No wonder I keep procrastinating on this quilt. Maybe I should just keep working on the top and figure out the rest later.