Going to one of the quilt stores didn't interest me. Honestly, there's not a lot of variety in what they have. Sometimes you just have to leave town. So off to Perth Fabrics I went. They have a wonderful store! Lots of fabrics, battings, thread and a whole host of other craft supplies for knitting, felting, painting, flower arranging, cross stitch, scrap-booking and probably more than I even know. It's less than an hour away and it was a beautiful day for a drive.
I picked up a few teal-ish greens (not so green in the picture though) for the Orca Bay Mystery quilt, and that yellow with flowers.. just because I liked it and it was in the bargain bin for 50% off - there was only a meter left.
And do you see this asian fabric? It's gorgeous! I had the lady lay it out on the table, we measured the length of the repeat, and multiplied that by 6, and rounded it out to 4 meters even. I finally found a fabric I want to use for one of those "One Block Wonder" quilts. This will be amazing!
And then, as I thought I was done looking around, there's a shopping cart at the front of the store with MORE discounted bolts. Lookie what I found to be the backing on my Mai Tai's in Paradise quilt (aka cruise quilt)!!
It's perfect!! Across the width of the fabric it repeats this scene three times. The store is trying to get rid of all these summer "hawaiian shirt prints", there were probably three other bolts there with similar patterns. The line up at the cutting table was full. The lady helping me asked how much I wanted and I told her probably about 4 meters... but let's see how much was left on the bolt.
Now this is the fun part. She didn't have a table to use, so she unfolded all the fabric from the bolt, and roughly measured it against a wooden yard stick she was trying to hold at the same time. She figured it was about six meters, and wrote it up as such, and gave me 35% off instead of the posted discount of 30%. Guess she was happy to get rid of it. Anyways, when I got home into my office, I refolded all the material. With this one, I measured. There are 7 yards (yes yards). Convert that to meters and you get 6.4 meters. She did a pretty darn good measuring job!
I'm probably only going to need about 4 meters of it for the back of the quilt, so I told Jim I may have enough left to make him a shirt... and the ladies on the cruise know how much he loves his hawaiian shirts! LOL He'd wear them everyday to work if it wasn't for the drab, navy, black or tan company shirts they make them wear. Apparently, it's even written in the company policy manual "no hawaiian or loud shirts".
I don't know about you, but I think a predominately male workplace could use a bit of colour - and I'm not just talking the language! hehehe
Needless to say, I got my "fix" today.
*does happy dance*
Perfect fabric for the Mai Tai quilt.
ReplyDeleteAnymore I do have to limit myself and I can only do that by not even looking at fabric. But when that Etchings caught my eye I was in love. I have a gray kitchen and bathroom. And of course my hair has plenty of gray streaks.
XOOXOXO Subee
I do the same thing and when that fix hits, I have to buy! The fabrics are beautiful!
ReplyDeleteHi Laurie - found you on Quilting Canadians - so excited to find another blogger there. Going to follow you here, and at QC! Looking forward to the coming year BOM - are you doing that one too?
ReplyDeleteSometimes you just have to get out of town!!!
ReplyDeleteThat is fun fabric!! And what a great deal!!!
I love that you were dreaming about it and guess what, you made the dream come true!! See! It can happen!!!