Adventures in Fabric Shopping!

                So now that you now all know, from our first blog, that I am not a quilter and don’t claim to be.  However, I wanted to make these Cuddle Quilts for my kids (I have 4 of them) and have them done by Christmas.  Well, as I told you, I recruited my Husband for the task and he was more than happy to dive into this project. Okay, okay maybe he wasn’t “happy” but he smiled and said “yes dear” when I told him he was going to do at least the first one so I knew what exactly I was getting myself into

                Well the first step in making the quilts was getting the Backing, batting, and thread, not to mention we have never done this before so we needed the cutting mat and all that fun stuff you need in order to cut your fabric.  So it was shopping time. In my head I am thinking, “Well there has to be an awesome little shop like Seams Sew Right here”. So I search and search and search some more and nope not one cute little awesome shop.  So I was going to have to go to a big chain shop.  I was not very excited about that, I wasn’t sure we would find the right fabric we needed to go with this quilt. 

                It was a Saturday, which is our normal “run around and get stuff done day” and we decided that we would just go to the first fabric shop we saw and see if they had what we needed. So we did. I am not going to say the name of the place we went because…well let’s just say it wasn’t like Seams Sew Right, I don’t know maybe I am bias!  

Anyway we go in and start looking for this fabric, touching and fondling (that sounds so dirty) but yes I was fondling fabric.  I even found I was smelling it, not even sure why I felt the need to do that!  After searching and searching this store and laughing at each other, we finally find the fabric we needed. We stand there and look at it and pet the fabric for about 15 minutes, you know just to make sure it was what we needed. I took the bolt off the shelf and man it was heavy!  I smile at my oh so loving husband and he rolls his eyes and puts his arms out to take the bolt from me.  Now mind you I have four kids, which means I need 4 different colors of backing so, I just kept piling it up on him, again this is heavy fabric and one color I grabbed two bolts because I wasn’t sure the one would have enough of the fabric that I needed.  At this point my husband was telling me something but I couldn’t make it out because he was now hidden behind all these bolts of fabric. I just shrugged it off and told him to follow me.  (it was a good thing our children were there to “help” lead him to the cutting table, and pick up the bolts he would bump into and nock over. 

So we get up to the table and the first thing I notice is they don’t have a cutting mat thing on the table. But I shrug it off not thinking anything of it!  But THEN I notice that she isn’t really using a ruler to make sure her cuts are straight! Again I told myself we will just even it out if we need to when we get home!  Then I saw them!!!!!! SCISSORS!!!! She was going to cut the fabric with SCISSORS and not a, rolling cutter thing!!!! (Yes I know now it is called a rotary cutter thingy)  I was in shock and it was too late for us to just walk out. I was thinking, this is not ANYTHING like what my mom does. I was so frustrated! 

So I watch her hack away at my fabric, holding my breath.  When I realized I needed batting, but remembered my mom told me to use something else but couldn’t remember what it was. So I look at my husband so lovingly and ask “what the heck did my mom tell me to get instead of batting?” he shrugs and I roll my eyes at him. I then pull my phone out and call the professional to see what it was she said. 

My mom laughs at me and proceeds to tell me to get muslin to go between the front and the backing…I say okay and hang up and stand there for a minute thinking, “What the heck is muslin?!”  I stand and turn around in this store and there are TONS of different things I had no idea what I was looking for but refused to call her back and ask what exactly that was. 

So I walked over to the cutting table where the lady was hacking away at my fabric and asked if they had any muslin, she looked at me and waved her hand in a general direction and said that it was over there “someplace”. I looked at her and thought “what a great sales person she must be”. I roll my eyes and go to the direction she waved her hand and started to look for it, having my oldest daughter help. Still not finding it my husband joins us for the hunt. I am now mocking the sales person and waving my hand in a circle in the general directing getting really upset about it. When lucky for her I finally find the muslin. However, now that I found it only meant I had to take it up to the counter and watch her butcher it. 

When we head back to the counter I find the cutting mat and the “rolling cutter thing”. I grab the mat then look at the price and have a minor stroke and put it back and shake my head, “there has got to be a cheaper way to do this".  Then I see this cardboard cutting board thing and I smile because it’s only like $5. I ask my husband what he thinks and he shrugs as if to say “why not?” So we grab that and the “rolling cutter thing” and take the muslin to get cut.  I was about to jump over the counter and show her how it was done but decided that I would just walk away instead of watch her cut it, not even paying attention to what she was doing, just hacking away at my muslin.  

As I am walking around looking for pins, I see that there is such thing as “quilting thread”. I see this and say to myself “huh, we may want to get this!” So I grab 4 different colors of this “quilting thread”.  I wasn’t exactly sure what the difference was but I said to myself that “if I am making a quilt I am going to need quilting thread!”  

By this time my husband comes up to me with all the fabric and I show him the thread!  Then he remembers we need some spray adhesive, so in my better judgment I don’t go ask the sales clerk and we walk around trying to find this stuff.  He finally does and all I can think is I want to get out of this store, I was so over it!   So we head up to the checkout counter and she is ringing us up and half the fabric won’t ring up! I was not enthused and I was already not very happy with this store, so not to make a scene I tell my husband that I will take the kids and meet him outside.  He smiles his “really?! You are going to leave me in here to deal with these people?!” smile and nods his head. 

I give him my “if I don’t leave now I am going to go off on these people!” smile, and he shrugs and lets out a sigh!  I step outside and of course the first thing I do is call my mom! 

“Oh My Gosh MOM THEY USED SCISSORS AND NOT THE “ROLLING CUTTER THINGY”

At this point my mom bust out laughing

“You mean the Rotary Cutter?”

I roll my eyes knowing she can’t see me, “Um yeah that’s what I said the “rolling cutter thingy”

She laughs even harder.  Then I proceed to tell her that I was going to buy the cutting mat but I told her that it was just so expensive so I got this cardboard cutting mat…(p.s. big mistake!”)

“WHAT?!” she gets very stern with me, “April you are going to need to go and get one of those mats it just won’t work right with the cardboard and I am sure you can find one at a reasonable price….” At this point I felt like I wanted to hide, mentally told myself “okay so note to self, she is really big on the cutting mats”. 

I reassure her that I think it will be fine and that it isn’t like we are going to make a career out of quilting. She of course not convinced and in her “mom is always right, but I will let you learn it the hard way,” voice she says “Alright, whatever you think dear”.  UGH I hate when she uses that tone!

Anyway I get off the phone and we get in the car to finish our regular shopping. When we are getting ready to head home my husband reminds me that we need a “walking foot”. I look at him with my “what the heck is that” look and he laughs and tells me it is to help guide the fabric through on the sewing machine. I roll my eyes and grab my phone to call the master quilter to get the answer. My phone is dead so I grab my daughters and call.

She answers and I think she was shocked it was me on the line.

“um, how important is it for me to use a walking foot?” I ask bracing myself for what her response will be!

“VERY IM-PORT-TANT!” 

“Oh so we can’t do it without it?”

She gives that “oh no honey you are not as good as quilter as I am yet!’ laugh and then says, “You need to go and get the walking foot!” 

Then she tells me she is having dinner with Grammie and needed to go.  In my head I am thinking “oh great! Two master quilters together and I go and ask this question!” I could just picture Grammie with her eyes wide shaking her head yes and mouthing to my mom “MAKE HER GET THE WALKING FOOT!”

I sigh and roll my eyes (again knowing she can’t see me) tell her okay and hang up the phone.

I look at my husband and tell him what she said and he looks at me with dreaded eyes as if to say “don’t make me go back into that horrid store”. I smile and flat out tell him I refuse to go into that horrid store and that we will go and try and search for one someplace else. 

And we did, we searched and searched but we couldn’t find one for our machine. I was so tired and the kids were not thrilled that we were dragging them all over the place and I threw my arms up and said “oh well, guess we are going to have to do it without one!” 

My husband smiles giving me the “yeah baby! We so got this!” smile and we head home!

All I could think was how much I needed a glass of wine before we did anything else with this quilt. The fabric was ready and we were looking at our table and the length of the fabric…how were we going to clean up the great cutting skills of the sales clerk…..

That is a whole other story! Tune in next week to read about our cutting and sewing of the first quilt!