Testifyin' .... Is Anyone With Me?

Today I decided to sort my fabrics .. I have three trunks in my studio, two in the hallway and one in my spare room where my daughter's computer is .. that one houses batting and large pieces of fabric .. one small one in the hall has nothing but trims .. the others are .. umm .. full of .. well, how do I say it ... downright ugly fabric .. granted I do have a lot of lovely fabric, but I've acquired those recently ... with experience ... they are in view on my desk but I need to make room in a trunk for them if I ever intend to proceed with actually making something ..... when I purchased my trunks I did not realize, until my DH pointed out to me that there are FOOT PRINTS on top of my trunk .... barefoot elves in London Drugs??

I'm a new CQer ... very new .. actually too new to have a large stash .. but I have one .. actually not one, but three trunks full ... I was getting a couple of squishies ready to send to Linda and thought I would need a trip to the cloth house to get her some fabrics ... then I started .. counting ... fabrics ... Dupioni .. raw silk ... cotton ... poly blends .. wools (so many wools .. for my P.I. quilt .. you know the kind of wool I mean "why are you wearing grandpa's seat covers dad?") and realized that if I sewed all this into blocks I would have enough material to make 70 baby quilts ... how humiliating ... how totally embarassing .. I've never even made a baby quilt ... I don't even have a baby .... and at 50, I don't see that happening .... thankfully. Tho MIL feels that we aren't too old to have one ... she has obviously forgotten how many years ago DH was born ..

"They" say that your first block will have no place on a quilt you make six months from now .. I feel the same way about fabrics .. I would not re purchase any of these fabrics now ... and who, are "they"???

My question is ... has it happened to you? And ... if it has, would you admit it??

You take an interest in CQ, quilting, bagmaking, knitting or whatever your fancy. Join a list ... maybe you join two .... meet other likeminded souls of the same nature .. and a lovely bunch they are ... they don't mind your anal questions and your silly photos of your muslin blocks/gauge swatches/seriously lopsided quilts ... it's a learning experience .. they have been there .. they are all encouraging and say nothing about your fabric selection or your methods of quilting ... life is good on the lists ...

You purchase fabric in 4" increments for CQ so you can have more variety which really works out to not having enough length to cover your wide spots which means you will have to piece maybe 3 different fabrics ... ahh but it's not the end of the world ... we press on.

You have not yet made anything .. but you are pondering .. planning ... eyeballing photos on the lists of those who have done far greater things .. by hand ... Leslie, Jo, Hideko, Kerry ... etc.

Finally you decide today is the day you are going to make a block ... THE DAY HAS COME ..

Kerry offers to help .. gives you a tut by email complete with pictures. Visuals are great ... Kerry is great .. her block is great ... yours is ... well .. it's a block .... who said it had to be pretty?

You reach for fabric and realize that what you have is so ugly you shudder .... good thing it's not an RR block because then "it will be going to someone. No one will want to work on this fabric".
But it's your first block and only a sample and you're doing it with Kerry and she is so encouraging ... "she is looking at technique" you tell yourself ... so you press on and use some of the ugly fabric. Oh man, this is really bad .. you don sunglasses to eliminate some of the glare ... yellow? why did I buy yellow? And stripes? You don't even LIKE stripes .....

And the block was completed in about four days .... well, the corner was not.

Today, I decide to go through my fabrics as I want to do something larger , perhaps a throw for hubby, maybe get a start on my P.I. block .... Ahh, I can see visions of a nekkid block involving Thomas Magnum, Matt Houston and The Chief .... well, umm .... maybe NOT The Chief ... The Chief is in a league of his own with Perry Mason .... and that league does not involve anything nekkid .. sorry about that, Chief .. sorry Perry. :o/ Matt and Thomas ... yeah, we can work with them. Nekkid or not ... hmmmm ... moving on

I open trunk #1 .... remove a handful of fabric and say "man .. what was I thinking when I bought these?" .. a voice from the hallway says "umm .. you weren't. CLEARLY" ... agghh .. 18 year old girls .. what do they know about fabric ... unless it comes by way of a skimpy top or a pair of half inch zippered Dorinha's that barely cover their bits.

Kyro appears at door of studio with his usual exuberance .. and resembling a hairy red Darth Vader.

He barks .. then starts talking ... if you have heard a Bullmastiff talk you will realize it is accompanied by a lot of roo rooing and the more he talks, the more he drools ... pass the towel ...

I realize he is barking at a piece of multicolored brown that is lying in a small heap on the floor. It looks like iridescent .. umm ... I will not expand .. dog owners will identify.

The sight of the ugly fabric is obviously far too much for him.

He retreated to the hall where I could not see him smoking ... looks out to make sure that dad isn't coming ... dad hates smoke.

I open trunk #2 ... Kyro returns .. he sees ... I find it's worse than the first ... I look at him .. he looks away ...

Alanna was right ... these are OLD LADY fabrics ... oh I know. Maybe I was planning on doing some of this when I became an old lady ... could that be NOW? I don't think so .. I still have my mind ... or do I? What person in their right mind would buy such fabric????

And you wonder why we smoke???

Open small trunk #3 and take some out ... Keeva pokes her nose onto the desk and spies the fabric.

She refuses to take ANY at first ....

Then runs off with a piece of pink .. leaves it near the toy box, soggy and dead .... Kyro returns to it and picks up the remains.

I attempt to get it from Kyro's cloth stuffed face .. "good puppy" .. thank you for ruining that but please don't eat it ..... I recall when my old bull terrier Talulah ate half a tray of Alanna's neon colored beads .... I had the most colorful front yard in all of St. John's. :)

Here Keeva and Kyro, have a bunch of ugly fabric .... Make a mess. Get them all soggy. Good job.

I look at my fabrics on my desk that I've purchased at the wonderful East Indian cloth houses in the last couple of weeks .... there are many .. they are lovely ... I revel in it's divinity .... Linda will love these .. no Linda, I sent you nothing soggy.

This weekend .... a visit to the cloth house.

Replenishing is good for the soul ... anyone coming with me?