A Little Weekend Shopping

Its hard for me to think in terms of fat quarters when buying fabric. For years I bought 5-10 yards of whatever I was looking at, as it took 5 yards to make a "cape dress" for me as the skirts are very full and the top has an extra layer for modesty. A cape dress is the plain style dress Mennonite and Amish women wear and if I was going to make the girls matching dresses well then I bought 10 yards, which we often did. I needed even more if the boys wanted matching shirts if it was a darker solid color fabric. In the last couple years I have managed to think in terms of 3 - 5 yards. Just recently I purchased fabric in 1 yard cuts. The fat quarters still seem so strange to me and if I do find a fat quarter I like, I can't buy just one, but at least 4 of them. In time I may begin to grasp buying small amounts of fabric but as yet, it hasn't happened. This weekend I did by a couple of 1/2 yard pieces of baby fabric but the rest I purchased in 1-3 yards. My shelves are filled with big pieces of fabric. Sure limits your ability to have lots of colors on hand as space is not that plentiful on my shelves. Its still hard for me to look at big prints or bold colors. I seem to stick to the same old tiny calico prints and solids. Looking at the other quilters blogs I am in awe at the beautiful bold colors used and how pretty they work up in the patterns. It just seems hard to teach this old dog a new trick.
This was the fabric shopping for the weekend. I did step a bit out of my comfort zone and buy a bolder flower print. So there is some hope for me yet !