A Happy Accident

Sometimes I come at a project wildly unprepared and don't even know it. I was so excited by the great sales at Joann's the last few weeks and I loaded up on fabric for certain projects, as well as general stashiness.

Typically when I buy fabric for baby quilts, I pick a handful of prints that work well together and get 1/4 - 1 yd of each, because admit it, baby quilts really don't take much. Usually this works out well for me, but this time I came up short...tragically short.

I had spent a couple days staring at the collection and decided on a simple courthouse steps pattern, arrange in a way that looks like paper lanterns. A little something like this in oranges and greys.

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/136515432428609829/

Thankfully, I decided to add some light teal fabrics from my stash, but even at that I still didn't have enough.

Now there's something particularly sad about this situation that you must know, if you don't already. I live 2 hours from JOANN'S and there are no fabric stores closer than that (besides a tiny quilt shop that I can't afford).

Of course, I could have been patient and simply ordered the extra fabric online. All I needed was a couple more cuts of what I already had, taking the guesswork out of the whole ordering online ordeal (something I'm still afraid of).

I had already half-finished all the blocks, so I decided to lay them out and get an idea of how it was looking. This is when the MAGIC happened. It was perfect. Not exactly what I'd designed, but absolutely precious nevertheless.

(This will be my backing fabric)

I quickly sewed together all the blocks and ran off to work. I felt SO accomplished! The name of the quilt might be Happy Accident, but I see it as an intentional change of heart. I didn't have to settle for the unfinished blocks; I could have ordered more fabric and finished the quilt as planned. But I fell in love with my unintentional new design, and decided to commit.

Long story short, I am so glad that I discovered this great new layout, and plan on making a larger quilt with the same pattern!