Pizzazz!

 

Julie decided to send me this flimsy last week. The package got delayed an took an extra five days to arrive. I spread it out on the bed and I knew what I wanted to do with it. I knew the quilt needed a border, and I knew just which fabric I wanted.

This is a Kaffe Fassett fabric, Guinea Fowl. I did a quick online search, and knew it was in stock at the Portsmouth Fabric Company, a little over an hour's drive from my house. The PFC is located in the middle of the busiest part of Portsmouth, just down the street from Market Square, which is guaranteed to be busy on a lovely Saturday. I knew I wanted to get to PFC as early as I could so I could get a good parking spot, so I left the house about 9 AM. I was able to park right across the street, and found the fabric I wanted right away.

I chose this print as the backing. I like big prints for backings, and I didn't want anything too dark.

The quilt has a lot of Kaffe fabrics, and I thought I should choose one for the binding. I chose this one. It's pretty unusual that I get the backing and binding at the same time, but the selection of fabrics was so great, I decided to go with it.

Now that I had bought what I went for, I was able to look around. I don't usually buy fabrics when I don't need any, but I sometimes fabrics can be inspiring. I picked these two.

Jealousy

What do you do on a perfect autumn day when the temperatures are mild, the sun is out, the house is clean (ish) and you have an idea for a quilt in your head? You go shopping. I drove out to Portsmouth NH to the Portsmouth Fabric Company.

I went there because they are known to have a gigantic collection of Kaffe Fassett fabrics as well as other unique and modern novelty-ish fabrics. I wanted some giant prints in green to add to my collection for my Green-Eyed Monster quilt.

I bought these, which will work very well. I have already run them through the washer and dryer and cut strips from them.

I also bought this Ghastlies fabric, because, Hello! how could I not?

And I bought this for the binding of my A Spring of Teal quilt, the small bird sampler quilt. Because you know, cats - birds...!!!

Boy, I'm telling you, thank goodness for GPS. I used to live just outside of Portsmouth, so I used to know my way around, but I can't remember the time I was last there.. (Oh wait, it was the year the last of the Harry Potter books came out, because I was there for my birthday with my son and we passed by a lot of people reading it. The books invariably came out around my birthday.) Anyway, I couldn't remember where Penhallow Street was, so thank the GPS. But parking in Portsmouth is rather a nightmare. I knew once I found a parking space, I could use the GPS to lead me in the right direction.

Fortunately they now have parking garages in Portsmouth or I'm pretty sure I would have never made it into town. The town was PACKED with visitors and tourists. I navigated through it all, and found a parking garage and parked, then walked about a block to two to the shop. It was fun because when I gave my name one of the sales ladies looked up and said, "OH! I want to take your bird class, I just LOVE your birds!" We had a nice chat. 

Fortunately my phone has a gizmo that remembers where I parked my car, because I had absolutely no freaking clue where the parking garage was. I was able to find my way to the correct parking garage (apparently there are two) and locate my car. Driving home was a piece of cake. I had the sunroof open, the cruise control set, and the heat blasting.

It was a great day.