BRITEX FABRICS

I'm getting num with all the sales that clutter my e-mail. Yes, I know I can block them, but sometimes I do want a coupon from Jo-Ann's and others.
One sale entry I don't want to miss is from Britex. Not that I ever could afford any of their fabrics, but just to sit and dream is worth it.
We went to San Francisco last August and while my husband took a simulated stage coach ride at Wells Fargo Museum, I feasted my eyes on the many shelves of fabric at Britex Fabrics.
We had a fixed time when we going to meet up again, of course all to soon. I only got three photos.
But I get the e-mails and the blog and this week they even have a blurp about a quilt show in Washington state.
Well, maybe one day I'll buy a yard of wool felt or Italian silk from this fabulous store.

PS. I have added a photo of the ceiling at the San Francisco Mission, one day somebody will make a quilt with that pattern.

Mercury and The Mad Hatter

So what's a mercury spill have to do with fabric.
Well, it's a stretch, but since I was a chemistry teacher in a former life, I feel for the poor guy, who managed to get his middle school closed for a week, and this the week before the scheduled spring break.
What happened was, that a bottle of the stuff fell from a shelf and broke, and then the kids tracked the small silvery droplets all over the school. Next EPA, worried parents, nightly news etc.
 So what's it to do with me? Well this week at the guild meeting we tried to encourage more people to take the challenge for June's meeting: 'Alice Through the Looking glass'.
Even if in that story Lewis Carroll only once introduces the Mad Hatter, he is such a familiar figure in connection with Alice from the previous  'Alice in Wonderland' that I always think of him when she is mentioned.
And I think of his predicament which has to do with mercury,
He spent all day making leather top hats which were in fashion then. The leather used for these hats had been treated with mercury, a tanning agent.
So there is your connection.

 And we don't want everybody out there going mad, do we? Even if we all loved it, when a thermometer broke and we could play with the quicksilver, mercury's common name.

Quilters' Reply Girl

No, this is not U-tube and even if I'll show wavy lines, those are on a quilt.

But because the same pattern is posted on Pipkinhouse.blogspot.com  I thought
I could make you look at that much lovelier quilt and compare.

I finally got my quilt finished and with it hanging out there on my deck with the redbud trees flowering
I guess all my troubles over that quilt have evaporated. Let's hope the quilt will carry that notion with it
to the person who receives it.  For it wasn't all fun!
Whoever stands up at Show and Tell and says "This was a fun quilt to make", either sewed all their seven daughters'  dresses  for years, or they read instructions VERY CAREFULLY, or  they have a warped sense of fun, two of which isn't me.
So when the instructions said: SEW ALL THE WHITE STRIPS TO THE BOTTOM OF THE WEDGES what did I do? - exactly that, but the previous line had told me to turn the wedges to face each other before doing it, which I did not.
 By the time I discovered my mistake and in addition had squared everything, I found I didn't have enough white on white to finish the quilt.
 So off on a shopping trip to Jasper with Mary which costs us both dearly. Next my sewing machine got hiccups and well as I said I FINALLY finished the quilt yesterday in time for the March meeting, when it has to be turned in.
 I'm so glad others have enjoyed making these waves more than I. I hope I don't make waves for the cuddle quilt committee, who spend hours cutting fabric and preparing these kits for us to take - all ready made.