Fabric Yammering

I've put myself on a fabric buying moratorium. I know I say that a lot but I mean it this time. Or, meant it. I have been quite well-behaved about only buying fabric for specific orders, or if I have a specific project in mind to make right away so it doesn't just sit and sit. I've really knocked a nice chunk out of my stash, so I think I'll be at a point soon where I won't feel guilty buying some new stuff. Of course there's the question--do I stash-build with basics or splurge on fun stuff? Decisions, decisions. To see what tickles my fancy I always head to the Fat Quarter Shop and just browse. Tonight I clicked on 'Novelty' and had a grand old time. I don't know what I'd use most of these for but they're fun to drool over :)

If you want to feel old mention cassettes to your nephew or some other kid. You'll be rewarded with a blank stare. When you describe what it is/was, you'll be informed that it doesn't sound efficient. I always had a blank in my stereo so I could record off the radio. And how many of us made mix tapes for our friends? Of course it took one screechy scrunchy sound in your tape deck and you knew you needed to find a pen to get your tape back to functioning.

Every week my aunt would take my brother and I to Woodhaven Mall. It was the best mall ever, we've agreed (since gone, of course--replaced with a Home Depot and a movie theater). They had a record store there, and I remember racks and racks of vinyl. Cassettes were kind of coming in then for their brief hey-dey before the CD took over. My grade school used to put on a lip-syncing talent show, and they actually requested that your music be in record form. Good thing record stores sold actual records still :)

 I want to live there. I'm not kidding.

 I was born way after I was meant to, according to my old soul. The kitschy fun of Route 66 appealed to me even as a kid. When I found out most of the road is now closed and kind of a ghost town tourist attraction kind of thing I was severely disappointed. I would definitely say if I had to pick a decade I was meant to exist in it would have to be the fifties.

This one looks a bit Scandinavian yet is distinctly British. I wonder if they made an American version of this fabric what icons would make it into the mix.

 There are some nifty fabrics in this one--the pebbles and shingles in particular. I'm pretty sure I'd want to live in this cute little town--quilts on wash lines and antique shops? Who wouldn't live there? Other than my brother, and one of my sisters, and maybe the other sister, and probably a lot of other people. OTHER than them, who wouldn't?

I went to nursing school for two semesters. Then I had to leave because I'm super-squeamish with that stuff, and didn't know about it until I thought I was going to puke on the guy who was my patient for the day because I don't do smells and hospitals are smelly so it's best that I left and went to school to be a teacher so I could leave that, too, and work in the corporate world doing safety training. 

 This reminds me of a story...Every summer we go visit my grandma in western PA during the week of their town carnival (which is a few games set up in tents in a parking lot). One of them is bingo (and the markers are pieces of dried corn). My sisters and I decided to drink too much Iron City Light and Zima one year (don't judge--it's all that was available) and play bingo. My sister Rachel bellowed--and I do mean bellowed--"BINGO!" Since it's hard to mistake a bingo everyone cleared their cards. But then she said just as loud "Oh, sorry, no bingo." If you ever want to see daggers and lasers come from little old ladies' eyes in small town America, yell a false bingo when there's about six dollars at stake (it's a quarter a card).

If you have an hour to kill go ahead and peruse the pages at FQS. But first give someone your wallet and tell them not to give it to you no matter what.