With Purpose in Mind I Entered the Quilt Shop

Yup! I have been fabric shopping. I went to my local shop with a clear picture of what I needed. I even took the necessary swatch of fabric so that I could get the correct shade of thread required to continue with the Pips Pinwheels. I was organised. I was steadfast of spirit and knew what I needed. I was going in, getting it and getting out again.

Of course I was!

So I got the thread, and an extra spool of the gutermann I use for 90% of my piecing and quilting because (as you may have figured out by now) I am not the sort of quilter who tries to match each and every fabric. I have neither the time nor the patience. I also picked up the remaining yardage (or should I say metre-age for the UK?) of the natural white cotton I use regularly.

Well done me! Next I had to find some fabric so that I could turn my Fat Jack in to a pillow. I succeeded once again.

Unfortunately in searching for that above dotty fabric I had to focus - on fabrics. It was all down hill from there. I just started randomly looking at fat quarters. Ones that caught my eye sort of stayed in my hand. Then I realised that I was focusing on greens, and that I would like to make a pillow with them because I have never made a pillow yet. So I found some more greens. I am sure that seven fat quarters will be sufficient to make a pillow, or two, or three.

It seemed a bit selfish to be excluding all other colours in such a blinkered way so I threw in a couple of blues for good measure - not for the green cushions of course but to just have, in case - well, I might need them some day.

And it certainly would have been rude to ignore the sale selection but there wasn't really anything there I liked, other than this lonely dot that needed to be in a stash, not at the bottom of a basket to be pawed over time and again.

And just when I thought I had better leave before I really got myself in trouble I found this -

1.4m of Kaufman flannel for £8.40 is a good price (here in the UK). And this impulse buy has a definite purpose. I started quilts for the girls a long (very long) time ago. Helen's is pieced and layered and I started hand quilting it. It sits there and looks rejected a lot because I started hand quilting before I discovered perle thread and bigger stitches. It is going to take me forever to finish it. Emily's quilt top is pretty well done but hasn't proceeded forward - mostly because I don't like it much. It is too white, too plain, too pristine. Not the sort of quilt that appeals to me. Maybe I shouldn't have let a five year old help me design it. Who knows?!

I did, however, make a throw for my friend Francine for Christmas last year as it was also an 'important' birthday shortly before. I used Kaufman flannels. I made a disappearing 9 patch. It was a lovely quilt - other than the fact that it destroyed my cutting board. I would show you a photo but it seems that particular photo is somewhere on John's machine and I shall probably never see it again.

Right, I am completely losing my point here. I made a quilt. A flannel one. I sent it away as a gift. Emily didn't want me too because she loved it hugely. That piece of flannel I bought today would be big enough to back a great throw for Emily and I could piece a top with all the leftovers from the first quilt. Namely all of this that sits in my stash -

I just reread the above. What a rambling post. I am going stop now before you lose the will to live. Suffice to say I should not be trusted in a quilt shop with debit card in hand. I think I spent the weekend grocery money. Hate when that happens!

Susan