Rachel "Ivy" Clarke

So I ordered my fabric online last week, and received it on Saturday. Just in the nick of time, as the quilt-along is already on the second and thrid blocks!
I opened up the package to sort my fabrics into darks and lights, like the quilt pattern calls for. I knew I would end up with some middle-value fabrics that wouldn't work as lights or darks, but I wasn't worried, becuase I only needed 12 fabrics and the kit came with 16.

Or did it???

Black and yellow fat quarters: Fat quarters for the Mod Quilt-Along, 2009.

As I was sorting out the pieces on my desk, pairing them and re-pairing them, it suddenly dawned on me that I only had 12 fabrics. I could swear the kit I ordered online said 16, so I went back to the website, but no dice: it read 12. I pulled out the invoice included in the shipping package. There was a note from the seller about how one of the fabrics was an inch short, so she sent me extra...and was nice enough to charge me for that extra bit, too.
But wait, even with that extra fabric charge, the total was still like $15 less than when I checked out online. I didn't have the receipt email with me, but when I got home, I checked it, and sure enough, I originally paid $44.00 plus $4.99 shipping, and this invoice read $33+shipping.

Not cool. I care less about the money than I did about getting matching fabrics that would work for this project. Obviously I was willing to pay more for the set; I essentially said as much when I agreed to the original purchase total online. Unfortunately, while my original email receipt lists the higher price, it only lists the product description as a fat quarter packs, with no specicfication of the number of fabrics included, and since the store already changed the website, I don't have much evidence to back up a claim. I assume that the sellers maybe ran out of the variety of fabrics, and so changed the website, maybe even before my order was pulled, which might explain the lack of notification. But still. I'm really disappointed, and won't be purchasing from them again, no matter how much I like the fabrics.

And I do like the fabrics that I got. But as much as I liked them, there were still two cuts that just didn't work for this project, so I went to a local quilt store in Pasadena with a friend (who I suckered into joining the quilt-along as well) to find some matching fabrics. I really like this store, they always seem to have a great selection, and the woman working was very friendly and helpful.

Now, black and white prints are pretty popular. Picking something out from the variety of those offered was not hard. But black and white and yellow prints? Non-existant. I tried for yellow, but it's not the most popular color, and bright yellow is actually a very difficult shade to match. I wanted something yellow and white--most prints had yellow and white and something else (not black). I found a yellow gingham that was the correct shade, but the geometric print really fought with the fluid designs of my other fabrics. I was feeling pretty demoralized and seriously considering just putting these fat quarters in the closet and starting over with a whole new color scheme when my friend pulled out a yellow and white daisy print. It wasn't my ideal fabric, but it was yellow and white, the right shade, and at least the flowers were fluid and rounded, rather than the stark grid of the gingham. It doesn't match exactly, but once the pieces are cut I think it will blend fine.