How to support your quilting addiction...

We've got another happy and bright quilt to inspire ya'll!  Danielle from Nacho Mama is sharing one of her many finished quilts with us today.  I love the prints and colors, it just seems so cozy!  She has recently revamped her blog so you must check it out.  She has a great collection of finished projects and quilts to go ga-ga over.  Here's her Mary Englebreit quilt:

Thank you, Heather and Megan, for having me on Quilt Story. The quilt shown does not have a name, nor does it have a label, and neither do any of the quilts I've made the last 17 years, unfortunately, but it does have a story that I'm proud to tell.

I've wanted a long arm forever, and finally, last December, I bought one. The inevitable happened. I found myself buying tons of fabrics for quilts that went together quickly (so that I could play on the long arm). In April, I looked at our family budget so that I could put us on an intense family savings plan (to buy a farm). I looked at our past two bank statements trying to get a gauge on how much I was spending and on what. The short version is that I was spending the equivalent of two car payments a month on fabric, consistently. Then the guilt set in since I felt like I was stealing from our family. At what point do you draw the line between hobby and addiction?

From that point forward, I decided that I must find a way for my hobby to pay for itself. I bought business cards, contacted the LQS about teaching for them, decided to take on machine quilting for other people, etc. Out of the blue, a friend of the family contacted me about a quilt that I had mentioned months before, back when it was just a top. She ended up buying the quilt, which wasn't actually for sale-- my first big sale since deciding to support my own hobby. After this happened, I was consigned to make ten quilts-- from start to finish. Along with all the long arming I'm doing, I'm definitely supporting my own addiction.

This quilt was one that was made using a layer cake (plus fabric for the border) in a mystery class at my LQS. This quilt was simple since it was just half square triangles, and it went together in very little time. The fabric used was Mary Engelbreit's Recipe for Friendship, and the quilting design is just a bunch of loops.

Thank you so much Danielle aka Nacho Mama :)  Linking with AmyLouWho.