Sometimes You Swim...

...and sometimes you flail around in the deep end until someone throws you a floating device so you can sheepishly kick back to the shallow end.

Yes. This is about that Jumping in the Deep End Again post.

And the Rainbow Road Quilt.

I spent some of this weekend plotting out when I need to finish each step of the quilt in order to finish it all in time to give it away in time and came to the conclusion that if I want to finish, I have to buy the fabric this month.

So I reworked my sketch to have some dimensions involved:

Then colored it accordingly:

Then started doing math.

And more math.

And a little more math.

And on my fourth attempt at figuring out how to convert everything from square inches to yards, I think I was finally successful in doing the math correctly.

And from that math, I did a little bit more math to come up with how much this is going to cost.

That number is big.

Having been a newlywed not long ago... I would rather have had something I want for a fraction of that number (or, you know, that number, that's good too) than spend that much on a quilt. No matter how lovely I think quilts are, or how special the sentiment behind it.

I know quilting can be (is) an expensive hobby, so I wasn't expecting this to be a cheap project. But I was really not prepared for the cost on this one. Neither was anyone else. I had three people double check my math and they all agree that, while the numbers seem alarmingly high, the math is sound. 

I'm still in love with the idea and the pattern. But I think I should shelve it until I can rework it in a baby quilt size. Or perhaps until more of the needed fabric can come out of my stash.

So... I don't know if I headed back to the sketch book to simplify and see if I can cut costs that way, if I'll look for another design that could work, or if I'm going to walk away from the idea completely and get them something from their registry instead.

Don't mind me, I'll just be doggy paddling my way back to the shallow end for a while.