Fabric Frustrations

So I am working/directing a project for our Women's group at church. I believe I have mentioned this project in a previous post. We were trying to use what we already had on hand to keep costs down. After much back and forth, my daughter and I decided we needed to use black fabric to frame the picture blocks. Now I have used black fabric in several quilts in the past. In fact I am more likely to use black than white in a quilt because I like bright colors and I think black makes them pop more than white.

I just want a solid black for framing picture blocks and for binding. Of course, because I am on a deadline, I can't find a plain solid black fabric. Not in my stash, not in the local Wal-Marts, not online, at least not in time for when we need it. As I have said before I don't have a local quilt shop.

This living in the country, far from Quilt shops is for the birds. I sometimes need to be able to do things spontaneously. Sometimes it takes my vision a little while to get it right and when I finally see the whole picture I need to be able to buy what I need to complete it. So I am frustrated.

How do I deal with this frustration? By buying fabric of course. I found some batiks at the Wal-Mart. A really cool black and gray one, a gold one, a golden brown one and a purple one. They also had some greens, a blue, a dark purple, and a red. I will have to go back for those. Anyway I spent way too much money on fabric, I really didn't need right before Christmas. But I did find a black with a very small white polka dot. I think it will work for the frames and binding. It will be cute but not as dramatic as I had pictured it.

So now my stash is a little bit bigger. Lately, I have been buying more white on white tonal fabric, to do more traditional quilts using 1930's prints. I have also been buying more bright colored fat quarters and batik layer cakes. I know I have quite a few pre-cuts and I am not sure what they will become. I need to go through it and figure out what I actually have and what I need to add. I know I am most likely not moving to the bigger urban centers where the quilt shops are, so I need to find a way to have what I need in my stash. That is at least until I can open my own Quilt shop.

I wonder if I could write and apply for a grant to preserve the Historic and Social art of Quilting. Maybe I could use something like that to open the Quilt shop. Any grant writers out there willing to do some pro bono work?