The Story of My Seduction

What a title, huh?? Racy!! Unfortunately this is not that kind of blog. This is about fabric seduction. You know, the type where you go to a store that is set up so well that you buy fabric that you would normally not? This is the object of my tawdry affair:

FISH!! Oh, I think I may have lost my mind that day. Let me explain. Last year in (I want to say) March, my mom and I went to Woodstock. We live in Orange county, so Woodstock isn't all that far away. What a cool town! It's all hills and turns and small stores and sidewalks and little cafes. The object of our schmoozing was Woodstock Quilt Supply. From the outside, it just looks like a little country store. But we walked in and wow! So not what you'd expect. The inside was light and bright with lots of windows, clean and open, and then the fabric was presented so beautifully. It was organized by type, with some fabrics being elevated and draped above the bolts like a display. Each bolt was tucked neatly in the shelving, with fat quarters of the same fabric cut and put directly above it if you didn't need/want a yard.

The store carries Kaffe Fasset, Amy Butler, Batiks, Laurel Burch, metallics, and Oriental prints. Guess what types of fabric I don't particularly care for? Kaffe Fasset, Amy Butler, Batiks, Laurel Burch, metallics and Oriental prints. But I fell for it, hook, line, and sinker. And I don't get taken easily. I am skeptical of everything. But oh, I was so enamored!! And worse yet, I bought a pattern, too!! Ugh! I NEVER buy patterns. But these guys are such masters, they had pieced this pattern in an amazing black and white scheme, and it was hard not to notice it. I had looked at the pattern on the rack and skipped right over it, because it wasn't grabbing me. But the quilt on the wall did. When I put together that the quilt on the wall was the quilt on the pattern, I just went right for it.

You can see the quilt that is the fruit of my tawdry affair. This is that BQ quilt, done in metallic Oriental prints!! The blue is the one with the fish (which are outlined in metallic gold), then the copper has copper metallic, and the white is one of those Fairy Frosts, which is---metallic. I pieced it last year, almost immediately after getting home from Woodstock while I was so in love, and then upon finishing it, remembered that I don't really like Oriental print fabrics, and I really don't like metallics. It was like coming out of a spell. So it sat pieced and unquilted on my ladder (I have an old wooden ladder to hold my UFOs) for however long it's been, until I got tired of looking at it last week. And I then had a hard decision to make: get rid of it, because it's not my style, or keep it as a reminder of my indiscretion. I decided to keep it. What you see here is the process of it being basted, and then some of the quilting. The blue lines are the chalk lines for the quilting. It's not done--it's going to take a little while. And it doesn't help that occasionally I'll stop and look at it and think "What am I going to DO with this thing?". ...I've been trying to stop myself from doing that. Now I'm focusing on the quilting itself. I figure I'll quilt the begeezus out of the thing, and see if I feel any better about it that way. The quilting you see is a water design which I will use for the whole white background, and then the clamshell you see on top here I'm thinking for the fish fabric itself. The copper fabric I plan to leave unquilted (it's ditch quilted now, but not decorative quilted) until I finish the other two parts, and then I'll see if it needs it. I think it will be interesting to have the two textures juxtapose. We'll see.

And that's my story: part one. Part two will be what it looks like when it's done, I suppose. But I will say if you are anywhere in the vicinity of Woodstock Quilt Supply, go ahead and visit the evil geniuses that own it. They are brilliant. The store really is worth the trip, and if you are a quilter who likes the fabrics I mentioned above, it'll be heaven! And if you don't like those fabrics, go anyway, because the store really is beautiful. It's not particularly large, but it's one of those that you need to walk around a few times just to take everything in, because it's not possible to really see it all at one time. Plus, the town is so cool. I wonder when I'll go back...