Going Fabric Shopping

April 23, 2008

Lately I've been doing it online. Fabrics at the shops I've been browsing are diverse and amusing, but not cheap. They also lack the tactile element of "how does the fabric feel?" How a fabric feels is often the deciding vote on whether I buy or not. I won't buy fabric that is too stiff, or too coarse, I want to buy fabric that feels good, and I also want it to appeal to me visually. I tend to like blues and greens and browns and more black than I used to. I also like "fun" fabric. My brother Carl gets more shirts than anyone except maybe me because he doesn't mind the fun fabrics. In fact there have been some that he really enjoyed. Well, I mean, I'm not out to embarrass him with pink bunnies in tutus or anything, but marbles and watermelon have both been featured. The last shirt I made him has cool Chinese dragons on it, and that fabric feels fabulous, too.

Ahem, so, back to shopping online for the fabrics... Without that visceral element, I find the fabrics, despite appealing prints, resistible. Which, right now, is a good thing. I have boxes and boxes of fabric already, and I'd really like to sew some of it up. I'd also like to organize the craft room INTO a craft room! That will have to wait for the summer. So, I don't want to add to the chaos yet. Well, any more than I have already. There's room in there to sew, and I want to keep it that way until I can pull out the boxes and see what is in them and decide what goes back to storage and what needs to be unpacked. SOMEWHERE in there are a lot of crafting books. EVERYWHERE in there are a lot of crafting supplies. So, while I can't resist the temptation of shopping, I can - at least for now - resist the temptation of buying.