If anyone had told me a few weeks ago that I would be able to match fabric from twenty years ago I would have fallen over laughing … but that is exactly what has happened, and I honestly do think I’m the happiest quilter in the country.

In 2003 I made the blocks for this top, and in 2016 I put them together. Then the project stalled, because it needed borders and that was problematic, to say the least. I had less than a half-metre of each of the three fabrics left, which wasn’t even enough for a 2″ border. The teal fabric had been purchased in 1992, the pink in the late 1990s and the purple in 2003, so I didn’t think I had a hope of matching any one of them.

The thing is, though, that the purple fabric was Fossil Fern by Benartex. I knew that the range had been enormously popular when it was released and I’d seen a couple of bolts here and there in the years since, but only in pale or multicolours, never in the dark purple. About a week ago I was idly browsing the web and got the idea to search for Fossil Fern fabrics, hoping to find a little Etsy store that might have a yard or two in a colour that wouldn’t clash too badly. To my great surprise and delight, however, I found that Benartex has re-released it (or perhaps had never stopped making it) and, better yet, they still run the same colourways. I found a store in Victoria (A Little Patch of Country) that had the shade I wanted (Black Amethyst), ordered it over the weekend and picked it up today.

Look at this — the new fabric is slightly brighter than the old fabric but it’s very close and when it’s separated by the inner border (a grey-purple) I don’t think it will be obvious. (It’s been raining for a week and the cloud cover is pretty heavy today so the colours are a little bluer in the photos than in real life, but I think the comparisons are still valid.)

I guess the happiest quilter in the country had better get to work … :)