I LOVE........FABRIC!!!!

Ok. I confess. I have been a fabric junkie since I was 12 and my mother took me to the Everfast Mill store where we could get amazing remnants for 10 cents a yard (this was 1960, when gas was 19 cents a gallon, but still a bargain). I used to make most of my clothes and don't sew as much as I used to but I still have hundreds of yards stored away in my craft room and occasionally open the doors of my cupboards and gloat over the goodies. The prize of my collection is a huge variety of Liberty remnants collected over a 20 year period. Most of them are 1/4 yard or less, but I also shipped over 200 metres of curtain fabric back to the US when we moved back in 1998. I probaby have 50 or more different Liberty patterns including some amazing patchwork that I bought in 1997. Sadly, Liberty hardly sells any rems any more and the last time I visited in May of 2008, I couldn't find the little baskets that used to contain the precious delicate floral prints.

Anyway, the Fall fashions have reawakened my lust for lovely luxurious wools, but the suburbs no longer have any fabric stores except for the highly plebian Jo Anne's which seems to specialize 50 varieties of fleece and shiny synthetics suitable only for a working class prom queen. Dredging through my ancient memories to the summer when I was 16 and had apprenticed myself to a talented local designer, I recalled that we used to haunt Fabric Row around 4th Street in Philly. Googled it and it still exists so I have to set myself up for an expedition.