Saturday, March 12, 2005

Potential Quilt


stash

I have been reading with great interest the quilting activities of Hilary at Wee Wonderfuls and was especially inspired by her amazing Kimono Quilt and Amy at Angry Chicken who creates works of art out of fabric.

I bought a quilting book last week and have about 10 ideas of things I want to make. I’m going to start with a design with houses and pine trees in baby size.

Then I struck an obstacle. Patchwork fabric is not that easy to come by in London. Despite the fabric district in Soho being full of shops stacked to the roof with bolts of silks, satins and anything else you can imagine, they don’t stock the small cotton prints ideal for quilts. After much web surfing I found several online stores but I feel that the fabric selection process really needs to be done with the tactile method of feeling the fabric and lining the colours up together to see if they go.

I finally found ONE specialist quilt fabric store in London at Kew, Stitch in Time and popped in there on the way to the airport yesterday. Well as you can see I got a bit carried away and left with enough fabric to make several quilts. I really find it surprising that there are about four or five stores like this in little Brisvegas but as far as I can work out the next closest quilting stores here are one near Milton Keynes and one in Birmingham! I guess Londoners have too many other distractions to be into crafty stuff?

4 comments:

Moonwishes said...

You poor thing. I can't imagine not having lots of fabric sources! My stash takes up 6 huge boxes plus bags on the floor. Hope all goes well with your quilt. You may also try thrift (charity) shops and look for garments made with 100% cotton which can be cut up into patchwork pieces.

Helen said...

Thanks Gail - you must have been collecting for awhile! Thats a good idea about the thrift stores - I'll keep an eye out.

Helen said...

ooh really?! I'd love to! Can I send you anything more exciting than tea bags?! drop me an email and we can swap details ...helenstewart@hotmail.com

Cheers

Charlotte said...

you could always try Liberty :)