The zen of buying fabric

I have always loved fabric. I admit. I can't walk through a fabric store without touching the fabric. ALL of it. One of the heartbreaking times in my life was when we moved from Littleton to Durham, NH and I had to actually get rid of fabric remnants and fabric pieces as part of consolidating my sewing "stuff." I sat on the floor of my sewing room and saw pieces of fabric from which I had made baby clothes, gifts for others and assorted projects from fabric-covered picture frames to padded boxes to folded stars. I still, 25 years later, regret getting rid of any of it!!

Becoming a quilter offers the perfect opportunity to buy fabric. You never know when you might be able to use a particular piece of fabric in a quilt which might not get made for years down the road. You can buy fabrics in colors you would never use in your own home, because you may have a friend who has that color scheme. It doesn't matter that you have several quilting projects underway for which you have purchased all the fabric you could ever need, because you KNOW that you will be doing other projects in the future.

A trip to Keepsake Quilting with my best friend and college roommate, another compulsive fabric buyer, ranks towards the top of fun things to do. We have been known to leave children ice skating (and freezing to death) for hours while we have browsed the hundreds of bolts of fabrics. (The children survived). We have missed countless lunches (including yesterday) when on a fabric-buying expedition. When she lived in Connecticut, we visited some vast fabric outlets and bought fabric to make ourselves and our families clothes, placemats, curtains and bedspreads. When we lived in Littleton, NH, we spent hours at Cut n' Sew, and we each bought down jacket and down vest kits to make for our kids and husbands. We have never held back where fabric-buying is concerned. In addition, we have a history of sharing in ordering yarn from Reykjavik (sp). to knit fabulous Icelandic sweathers for everyon in the family. Oh yeah, we go waaaay back on all of this great crafty stuff.

Yesterday offered a classic shopping trip to Keepsake, "just look" in my case and to "just buy a few fat quarters" for a new baby quilt for her. HA!! She picked up a quilting book for making pot holders and brought it over to me to see the nifty designs and combinations of colors used in the pot holders. She said "I think I'm going to buy this book." I said, "We could do these same things without the book." Moments later, I spotted a second book in the same series and started to browse through it. It did have beautiful ideas in it. Probably way more imaginative than I would be if starting from scratch, I thought. Plus, it had templates for the pattern pieces and for the appliques.......I took it over to her. "Maybe you're right," I said. "If you buy that book, and I buy this one, then we can share and trade back and forth." "What a great idea," she said.

It became the perfect excuse to buy a handful of colorful fat quarters that matched nothing, but could be used in these beautiful, easily finished, small projects! Did I say "just look?" In a fabric store, I never "just look." In a fabric store, just as in meditation, time is meaningless and the outside world just falls away.