Month: May 2026

Ten Years is Not a Long Time for a Quilt

If you think that passing ten years without starting that quilt sounds like a lot, let me assure you it is not. That time will go by quicker than you think. Some twenty-seven years ago, I bought some coordinating Daisy Kingdom fabrics from a big box store. I was going to make a dress with a matching apron and bloomers for my then toddler. The fabric was adorable – it was tan with navy plaids and little zoo animals sprinkled about. I already had the pattern, and I’d already made the same outfit with watermelon themed fabrics, so how hard could it be to make a second with different fabrics? Harder than you would think. I never started the second dress with the cute plaid zoo fabrics.

My daughter quickly outgrew that dress pattern and the fabric seemed to “baby-ish” for her once she was 3 or 4. So, I just put it into my stash for later. Years passed. Then, fortune shined on the cute fabric as a work friend was having a baby, hooray! The fabric had lots of neutrals so it would have been cute for any baby. I set to work making a log cabin baby quilt using my favorite Eleanor Burns book from her wonderful Quilt in a Day series. I got all the strips cut and made all the blocks in a matter of a few days, then I lost momentum. The friend moved away, and we lost touch. I never finished the quilt. The couple even had another baby, and I still didn’t finish the quilt.

Additional years passed (it had been over ten years since I bought the original fabric) and now it was I who was pregnant again. I could just finish the quilt for my own baby! Alas, as every quilter knows, when there is an exciting new quilting occasion, we can’t help but go buy something new. I had my eye on this adorable print of babies sleeping on cows with the words Moon Beams and Sweet Dreams on little banners. I’d used the same fabric for a quilt for my best friend’s baby just a couple years ago and it was still in print. So, the poor little plaid zoo quilt still didn’t get finished.

It’s been twenty-seven years now and I still have the blocks and already cut borders in my stash. They just need to be sewn together, backed, quilted and bound… not too much work, but where am I going to find the motivation with so many other quilting distractions all around me? My son is now 16 and he always talks about “when [he’s] a Dad”, so maybe the little plaid zoon quilt will have a future as a grand-baby quilt. What’s another ten years or more anyway?

That’s Not Really a Lot of Fabric

My comic strip By the Yard® is about a quilt-loving girl and her model-train-building hubby. Other than the fact we are not actually married, much of my comic is based on real life. Back when we first met some nine years ago, I was designing sewing patterns. Although I did have a previous long-running comic strip, it was at that time on hiatus. I took Train Guy with me to the fabric shop to get some fabric for the backs of some holiday pillows I was working on. At that time, good quality quilting fabric was $10 or more dollars per yard. I was trying to figure out the smallest amount of fabric I could buy in order to do the job. I was going to buy 2 yards. He was standing there with me in the cutting line, goading me to “buy at least 4 yards”. When I declined, he upped the ante and suggested I buy the rest of the bolt. This exchange was the basis for the very first By the Yard® comic.

The very first By the Yard® comic!

I’m not sure if he understood how expensive fabric was at the time, but now that he does, he still encourages me to buy way more fabric than I need. Apparently, as a hobbyist himself (he builds model trains), he says it really frustrates him when he runs out of a needed supply. Thus, the encouragement to always buy more. I now have far too much fabric and a very small number of finished quilts to show for it. My endless quests for new fabric have resulted in more fabric that I don’t really need, but the happy side effect is inspiration for many more fun By the Yard® comics.