Anyway, in light of the impending arrival of yards upon yards of fabric, today I decided that it was time to sort through the "new fabric receiving pile". It has been growing at an alarming rate and hasn't been cleaned out in about six months.
First step: sort fabric into piles according to what box they need to go in...
Second step: drag out the boxes that fabric needs to go into and realize they are full.
Third step: wonder why I covered my bed in fabric BEFORE nap time:
Anyway, I got to thinking about weird/ugly/unusual fabric. I'm told I buy a lot of it. In fact I pretty much started thinking about it when I realized how funny my mother will look at me if/when I show her the fabric I just ordered. She has said, in paraphrase, "You buy the weirdest/strangest/ugliest fabrics that I would NEVER buy...but I like your quilts so I guess you have an eye for it." Thanks, I'll take the compliment and leave the rest!
For example. I bought the following on a shopping trip with Mom & Aunt M who talked for days afterwards about me buying the following fabric, which apparently they thought was extremely weird:
Apparently they haven't caught onto the fact that I will buy ANYTHING with hearts on it. In the grand scheme of things, this has been one of the LESS weird things that I have purchased. I can't quite get over this one, which has these great pink and gold stripes the run the length of the fabric. A quilter sees nothing but potential in that, right? RIGHT??
I also remember the day back when I first started quilting and I came home from fabric shopping thrilled to death to have found this for $0.60 a yard. Naturally I bought a half yard of it for thirty cents.
I mean I could go on and on:
A while ago there was an article in Quilters Newsletter about a woman who apparently has the same problem/gift. I was, of course, tickled that I owned one of the fabrics featured in the article. I don't however see what's so weird about it:
Actually there are a few fabrics that even I find ugly after I buy them, but I will spare you those pictures for now. Anyone else out there have similar "issues" when it comes to fabric buying??
5 comments:
Ah, yes ... quilters who no longer want certain fabric give it to me for Project Linus quilts, and I recognize two of your featured uglies that fall into that category. Let me say I have used them both in very (I repeat, very) cute quilts.
Actually, fabrics aren't ugly, some people just have limited vision. Well, I guess some fabrics actually are ugly. But I have seen great quilts that, on close inspection, are made with ugly fabric. So go to it!
You know, even the trendiest or most fashionable fabrics will eventually look weird and/or tacky when teh styles change. Buy what you love, and be creative / adventurous when putting them together. I actually like those blue fabrics, and I don't know what's wrong with the tree fabric either.
Yeah, I could find a good use for all of these. Well, all but the top one, anyway.... I hope this doesn't ruin it for you, but I can't look at the top one without the phrase "in their race towards the giant pink heart-shaped egg" coming to mind. But maybe that's just me.
If I found the $.60/yard one for that price, I'd grab the bolt in a heartbeat. Gotta have backs....
Wow - some of those are seriously ugly but quite appealing in a strange kind of way - lol ! Dying to see how you use that pinky twisty fabric though ! I inherited some uglies from a friend of a friend and am trying to use it in some scrappy quilts. I did read somewhere that if you can still tell a fabric is ugly you haven't cut it small enough :-)
Um -- I HAVE that heart fabric. In fact, I just used it this past spring in a quilt for my daughter -- sorry, can't say that one is ugly. Though I do have some that I don't love anymore!
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