shopping for quilt fabric

Shopping online for quilt fabric has its downside, mainly shipping costs and sometimes wildly inaccurate color photographs. (Recently, I bought two completely different-looking solid yellow fabrics from the same shop and when they arrived, they were indistinguishable from each other. *frowns*) But it has many advantages, too.

Saves a lot of gas, not running around to quilt shops (which are rare, spread far apart, and often open at hours incompatible with a M-F, 8-5 job). And a much wider variety fabrics. (Oh, how I dream of somehow clumping my five or six favorite etsy fabric shops together and making them one brick-and-mortar shop just next door to me.)

Not sure if this is an advantage or disadvantage: It also means that when you run into Jo-Ann Fabrics because you need a nice, simple red & white backing fabric for a baby quilt, you're suddenly stunned and totally unimpressed by what they have available. I was so underwhelmed. And I expected red & white to be easy. I ended up with a bright yellow fabric (that will be totally adorable, but I don't want to spoil the surprise of the pattern for now). And that almost didn't happen, either. Some one had put a pre-cut length back on the bolt and the lady helping me and I had an O___O "There's not going to be enough!" moment. Ended up with just enough, plus two inches left over.

I think, if there hadn't been enough of that, I wouldn't have been happy with any other fabric there. I'm so spoiled.