Those Who Can't Do...Shop!

"...but when the store owner saw them

she said they were the ugliest fabrics she'd ever seen."

Yes, yes, all summer I've been bemoaning my lack of knitting progress. Sorry, not trying to bore you with more...

But just before the weekend, I found one partial solution to the problem: my sister and I went fabric shopping. And we went to my favourite quilt store (with apologies to the rest of the LQS, but this place really is great). We went to the Goshen area's Calico Point (24856 CR 40 at the intersection with CR 119, 574-862-4065). My sister had never been there and I had promised her a trip. So we packed up the kids and off we went.

Still love that store. Their racks for displaying fabric are neat and uncluttered. They have a lot in any colour you might want. And the prices are great. Plus they're way out in the country so space is not an issue. You know they actually have an empty table out in the store for you to lay your fabrics out on, so you can actually look at what you're getting. Very important when you're trying to buy several fabrics for the same quilt and you want to see how they work together. In any other store, you have to lay them out over bolts of other fabrics and it can be very distracting (and crowded).

Did I mention I love this store?

One more reason I love this store (as if I needed another) is that they are now carrying Kaffe Fassett fabrics: be still, my beating heart! Fassett is a textile artist whose name I have been bumping into everywhere. I've read about his knitting designs, his yarns, and especially his fabrics. He is a man who can't get enough colour. And, hmmm, so am I. (Well, I'm not a man, but you know what I mean.)

And now that I loaded his website, I see that he does rugs too. Oh boy, more to fall in love with!

Anyway, back to my real life, after drooling over the few bright and colourful Fassett fabrics they had, I couldn't leave without this circling red:

I immediately thought that I would have to cut out those circles in big 8 or 10 inch squares and just alternate them with another (plainer) coloured fabric.

But what to use? Red would blend too much; the turquoise would clang too much; and the navy would be too dark. That left me with yellow. And the ever-obliging Fassett had this to offer:

The yellow's a lot brighter in real life. Like edible sunshine.

And so I took it. I can't wait to dive into this quilt. I'm thinking very simple alternating blocks and no borders. When it's done, I'll just have to find a binding fabric. (I like to buy these things as I go so I can get a feel for the quilt, rather than buying everything up front and then assembling it like a kit.) But I'm thinking either navy to "hold it all together" or maybe the turquoise. Of course it'll all depend on what I find at the time.

And now this brings me back to time...when am I going to get this cut out? The good news is, it shouldn't take long at all!

As I was having my fabric cut (3 yds of the yellow, 5 yds of the red), I made sure to make a comment about the Fassett prints so they would remember that people are buying them and liking them. (And then they will hopefully continue to carry them.)

The girl laughed and said she liked them too, but when the store owner saw them she said they were the ugliest fabrics she'd ever seen. But she listened to the opinions of others and said she would carry a few designs to see how they went.

Lucky me because a few yards went with me!

Yum!