Fabric Nirvana

Appropriately, I found my fabric nirvana in the Pacific Northwest -- in Portland, Oregon, that is, while I was on my summer vacation visiting friends Jay and Chanda.

Fabric Depot ranked near the top of the list of sites I wanted to see while I was in Portland (only Pok Pok rated higher). So one sunny afternoon, after eating lunch at a Mexican food cart, the brave and intrepid Chanda tossed me the keys to Jay's VW Jetta (stick shift, of course) and rode shotgun as we lurched our way across town.

The store, as you can see in the photo above, was pretty overwhelming. I got sucked into the "period" cotton bolts, falling hard for patterns that dated back to the 1930s and 40s. I was also able to pick through a vast selection of Alexander Henry and Robert Kaufman designer fabric that I'd previously only viewed online. I filled my shopping cart twice! And, since Fabric Depot has such great sales, I only spent $100 on 20 different fabrics. In fact, they're currently running a 25% off online orders sale now, which is pretty tempting...

We spent another day browsing the shops of Alberta, and dropped into Bolt, which is rightly described as a "neighborhood fabric boutique." Space was at a premium, and a mom and her young kids took up most of the browsing space, so I didn't get to see too much, although I did buy a few remnants of Lizzy House while I was there.

Since coming home, I've also ordered yardage from Fabric Worm, another west coast store I originally discovered on Etsy. This store keeps old standbys like Kerchief Girl and new favorites such as the Laurel Canyon collection in stock.

Now that I've gotten this influx of brand-new material, I have to ask -- do you have as hard a time cutting into beautiful new fabric as I do?