Sewing vicariously

Back in the States I had the luxury of having a studio in our house, a bedroom filled with jewelry tools and fabric.  It was a space I could leave messy, which fosters my creativity.  Here in Sweden I have some paints and some jewelry tools, but I am not that inspired to create.  I am known to dream about our next house via Pinterest, though.  When we move back I want to do a nautical-themed bedroom for Bowen.  Not all-out cutesy anchors and crabs everywhere, but something that looks like it might be seen on Nantucket.  This shirt for Bowen is waiting for the weather to get warm enough to wear, but also serving as my inspiration piece for his room.  I don't want all madras, just something for the top of the bed like a duvet cover that will pull different elements together.  Sometimes I look on eBay for Ralph Lauren components, but haven't had any luck yet.

Every spring I seem to have this obsession with nautical things: navy and white stripes, boat shoes, rope knots...  Today on Katie Bower's blog I saw this Pottery Barn patchwork madras quilt that fit the profile for Bowen's future bedroom, and upon further examination I realized that they're currently on sale for $30 off!  Perfect!  Except they wanted to charge like $30 in tax and shipping to Virginia. I couldn't find a coupon code for free shipping, and ultimately I didn't want to pay $150 for this thing, so I got discouraged and googled "madras fabric". I considered getting some drop-shipped from India to piece a quilt myself.  (I've made simple quilts like this before, which you can see here, here, and here).

But then I found this madras by the yard that is already pieced into 3" squares and the angels started singing.  Google tells me a full size quilt is 80"-88" across, so my plan is to join two 43" widths for the top. I signed up for the e-newsletter from Fabric.com and got 20% off my order, which came to $50 (free shipping!).  I'll likely skip binding and finish it inside-out (kinda like making a pillow) with a navy flat sheet for the back.  Then I'll topstitch the edges and across the middle a few times to finish.  It should be a simple project, right?  I'm really missing having my sewing machine. Meanwhile the fabric is being sent to my parents' house to await our return.

Story of my life... I love Pottery Barn, but I am too cheap frugal to shell out the money.