Stores

Jacquie brought up some good points about shopping: 1) it's more fun to do so in person rather than online, and; 2) many stores that one can get to carry 'old-fashioned' type fabric and not "fun" fabric.

I agree with both points. I am only beginning to like the flowery old-fashioned fabrics but have always preferred the wacky ones, like this one that I call Surfin' Skele's and that I bought 20-odd years ago:

I just picked this one up and think it's fun - sorry for the blurry picture:

And this one I recently picked up at Fabricland for $3.99/m - and it's a nice quality fabric! Can't beat that price.

While inexpensive fabric is exciting to find, I realize that it isn't always the best thing to put one's money toward - for several reasons, not the least of which is that it rarely supports the small, local quilt shop.

Here are some fat quarters I bought at Andjareena's Place near Trenton, Ontario during a recent visit out that way:

She has a wonderful selection including some wacky fabrics, that I didn't pick up, in such a small place! And she has lots of tools, templates and patterns. Plus yarns, pieces of hand-dyed wool, and on and on. Quite a fun shop.

Do you have a favourite quilt shop? Why is it so good?

I'm off to iron and wash and get ready for work. Hope you all have a great week!

Keep your foot on the dogs!

Delivered!

Well dad's finally received his finished quilt. It only took what, 20 years to finish? I washed in gently, too, and dried it outside. It dried in remarkably little time. Of course, I neglected to take any pictures of it all finished and spruced up, but there you go.

Next two projects are a lap quilt for my daughter with a yellow background and this pattern. I have only recently come to appreciate antique quilts with yellow backgrounds and now find them bright and cheery, not dingy and cheap-looking as I used to. Like this one. It's difficult to find pictures of beautiful antique yellow-background quilts. At least I find it difficult. But I digress. I thought I had enough of one yellow that I bought at a yard sale in Ithaca, N.Y., 20 years ago, but turns out I don't. I'm now up to using 4 different yellows that I've collected over the years. And I'm using some new and old fabrics for the block pieces.

I went on a HST sewing rampage and then was somewhat discouraged when I saw the big pile. Let me explain. I have found that for whatever reason, I have trouble creating hsts when starting with squares of the proper size. For example. to end up with 2" hsts one is supposed to begin with a 3" square. If I start with a 3" square, my 2" hst may end up being slightly short somehow, or not quite right in some other way. So to avoid this, I added 2 inches to the finished hst size instead of 1 and ended up with huge hst patches that all need to be cut down to 2.5". Lots of cutting, but hey, isn't that part of what quilting is all about? I just wish I or my machine were more accurate - that way I could use 3" squares and not have to do as much cutting and I wouldn't be wasting as much either. Oh well.

The other project is my mother's quilt. The quilt-as-you-go quilt she began the year before she died. I would really like to have that on our bed this winter and it will only take some hand sewing so it is definitely doable.

Another quilt store closed here in Toronto. It's depressing. I have only bought one thing online from a quilt store as I prefer to go to the stores to browse and soak up the ambiance, but there is now only one store that I can get to within one hour. Pretty sad for such a huge city, I think.

Oh well, pip, pip.

Keep your foot on the dogs.

So, I'm visiting my father this week, and guess what? I haven't finished his old quilt yet! So for the next few days, along with everything else I have to do, I will be focusing on getting it finished and ever so gently, washing it.

Remember the quilt?

I went to FabricLand yesterday in the sweltering heat, on my bike, primarily to pick up some of their pre-fab drapery panels. They had some that weren't completely awful for $7.99 each. Can't beat that. We needed them to separate the living room, that now has an air conditioner making it liveable, from the kitchen that doesn't. Here's a look:

They had such an amazing sale happening, with just about everything at 50% off. They had linen and cotton and silks and quilting cottons (although they never have alot). It isn't so hard to decide what to buy, but it's horribly difficult to decide what to leave behind. I just bought three fabrics to makes dresses/skirts from. Unfortunately, I've never really made clothes so when I got home, I also bought Sewing for Dummies from Amazon. I thought I'd leave off buying anything for quilting as while I'm up at my dad's I can visit the quilt stores in Trenton and Belleville. I'm looking forward to that.

Last week my bad cat, Lenny, started his spraying-in-the-house season, hitting my partner's briefcase and our old metal filing cabinet. Again. I have toyed with the idea of putting him on medication to stop this behaviour, but I always balk at actually going through with it. What right do I have to put him on mind-altering medication? But after last week, I just felt too fed up with having to clean up after him. Plus, he came home on Tuesday with a dislocated toe that was too painful for him to walk on, so that cinched it. Off he went to the vet. They knocked him out to re-locate his toe and boy was he high when I brought him back home. Look at this:

He sat like that for awhile - too much effort to make it up both steps. And this week we started him on mood-altering meds. They seem to have make him rather spacey and he isn't cuddly anymore, so I'm not sure if I'll keep him on this medication. Yes, there are others, so I may end up trying on of those.

Better get going and get on to everything. Hope your Sunday is going well, and remember,

keep your foot on the dogs.