Let's blog about fabric

My cough lingers, but most of everything else that has made me so uncomfortable has fallen away.  Not a moment too soon, either, as I am behind on way-too-many things.  So naturally I spent  a good chunk of my first real feel-good day in the sewing room.  & rounding it out with a Block Lotto-Linky Party post about fabric.

I don't know that I have anything to say about fabric that I have not said before...over & over again.    I am addicted to novelties, the more off-beat the better.  Flamingos on bicycles, mushrooms doing arithmetic.  FYI: I am still looking for more of that hot dogs dressed on barbecue aprons barbecuing hotdogs that I am almost out of, so if anyone happens across some let me know.

Lately I have been on a Thursday Next themed fabric quest.  Clocks & cheese (not, alas in the same print) have been easy.  More difficult is fabric with dodos, Neanderthals but I am optimistic.


People often ask what I do with novelties & the answer is pretty much everything you would do with a not-novelty.  Block patterns of large simple graphic shapes work really well with crazy patterned fabric.  One of my favorites is an old Block Lotto block I have made more than once.  Most recently with saturated pink roses (boring!), but also successfully with simple chickens in head kerchiefs speaking French (good stuff!). 

My novelty addiction started small.  Well, not small, but specific.  I was cruising through a book, The Modern Quilt Workshop & I discovered the Story Quilt.  It is clear that this quilt was probably designed for a child, but I didn't see it that way.  Right away it looked like something I wanted to make & wanted to keep. 

As it happens I have never kept one, but I have made them for all kinds of people, including kids...& mothers (my mother!) & physicists (my husband, my brother).  It is my go-to quilt when a new small-person (they aren't all babies, some of them are adopted internationally) arrives in my circle.  Years ago I posted this picture of one I made for a brand new baby girl; this time next month she will be a big sister.

In those early days, my novelty fabric purchases were limited to what could be viewed in a 3" square, but those early days were brief.  Almost immediately I began to expand the images, which meant expanding them in the quilt.  usually I limit most squares to 3", but I toss a few 9" squares in there for fun. 

& that's all  I've got.  Oh wait-I keep my fabric sorted by themes, mostly:  people, buildings, scenery.  Within some categories I have sub categories.  As in aquatic- animals- mammals.  Most of my fabric is out on open shelves, one shelf deep from the ceiling.  This way I can see it with tripping over it, or I would be able to if I ever put anything away.

Wish list (if you could just direct me...)

I am more than a little bit obsessed with Thursday Next.  I have been contemplating a tattoo à la hers from The Woman Who Died A Lot (I would tell you what it is but that would be a spoiler), in the not so secret hope that after I die, whichever med student gets my cadaver (did I skip that bit?  Sorry--after minimal consideration & honestly it is not like we have progeny, me & A both thought we would leave our leftovers to the med school)...which ever med student gets my cadaver might just think I WAS Thursday Next.  Wow, what a great sentence that was! 

In the interest of obsession mash-up (because one good obsession deserves another), I have been quietly acquiring Thursday Next-ish themed fabrics & patterns to make a Thursday Next quilt for myself.  I think the reality that there is no such fabric line makes this more fun (so please, Benartex, Lakehouse & Timeless Treasures et al, I honestly would rather do this without direct input from you; I realize Spoonflower may already have such a collection -they have the Dr. Who & tardis toile, after all- but I am confident they are not trying to lock it down).  Some of the stuff I have had for awhile, yards of rather regency looking characters-ideal to represent that book that disguises JurisFiction HQ for example.  I also bought the Wuthering Heights FQs when they were on clearance way back when & we can pretend it is really Jane Eyre, right?  & there are book fabrics & clock fabrics almost everywhere once you start looking.  I don't need to tell you that nursery crime, erm, I mean Nursery Rhyme fabric abounds.  I even have some rather off-beat generic saint-sort-of fabric that I am happy to call Saint Zvlkx.  Maps of the Crimea present their own challenge, naturally, but I think I can get around that one.  Maybe.  Cheese fabrics abound (who knew?).

But I am running into a wall with a few things & so I am asking:

Has anyone seen any dodo fabric?  What about a line drawing of a dodo for maybe a redwork design?  I have looked through my Dover clip art for same, but all the drawings are more detailed than I can manage.  I am toying with appliqueing a dodo, but that seems like it's own project & maybe not part of this one.

Ditto Porsche line drawings.  I realize I may just have to trace one (I am NEVER gong to find the correct make & model with the specific colors so I have given up on that), but I thought I would ask.

Neanderthals are shockingly neglected in all handwork resources.  There is really nothing more to say on that. 

So if anyone has any thoughts, I would appreciate the feedback, either in comments or message me or whatever.  Also, & I realize the answer is probably "oh hell NO", does anyone else want in...?

Saint Zvlkx

If you have never heard of Saint Zvlkx you need to run don't walk to your local library & get acquainted with Thursday Next.   By the time you get to the fifth book, you will have heard of Saint Zvlkx in passing, mostly in reference to the site of his now-demolished cathedral.

On the way, you will learn about the new world religion (the Global Standard Deity).  Living as I do in a part of the country where religions that have a lot of overlap (our county has three, count them three, independent First Baptists Churches) but spend mucho energy emphasizing their differences, the idea of a religion that emphasizes the sameness of them all, well,  it is almost irresistible.  It has all gotten mixed in my mind with the older brother in Wonderfalls, the atheist studying comparative religions; a state of belief quite common in his field at least according to him.  G*d I miss Wonderfalls.

Who was/is Saint Zvlkx?  Well I don't want to spoil anything for you so all I will say is he might be a visionary, or a sham, a flim-flam or a visionary sham.  Seriously, read the books.  Also, get Wonderfalls, it's on Netflix.