vacation fabric scores #3 & #4

Home again, yay! My weekend Portland (OR) hookup with my two sisters was a blast, but I am sooooooo glad to be home. (Not so glad about the fatigue, achy back/neck, itchy throat, and inflamed sinuses that yesterday I was trying to blame on vog and jetlag, but this morning must accept are likely early symptoms of a cold picked up somewhere along the way from Portland, ME, through Portland, OR, to Honolulu, to Hilo: 5 airports, 5 flights, many hours of layovers and delays, and exposure to a few more fellow humans than I typically encounter in 4 days.)

However, not jetlag nor germs, nor a combination thereof, are enough to keep me from jumping right into pre-washing and ironing my recent fabric acquisitions. At this moment washer load #4 and dryer load #3 are in the works, and a lovely pile of yardage is stacking up in the sewing room.

Highlights from Fabric Depot (ginormous) and Bolt (small), both full of goodies and worth a visit when you are next in Portland, OR...

BIG PRINTS:
Does this every happen to you: you see a fabric and part of you thinks it's hideous and awful, and another part of you falls totally in love with it? That's what happened to me with these peonies. Which are huge. Each blossom is at least 6" across. I'm seeing a long skirt, full at the ankles, fitted at the hip (long godets, maybe?), so got three yards of it. I may wake up and wonder what I'd been drinking:

This one's big, too, but only a yard, and will probably end up as part of a summer skirt:

This one, I don't know yet. Again, the print is huge; this is about half the width. I have 3 yards of this, too, and may end up wearing it. Or not.

USEFUL STUFF for the Stash (yards and half-yards):

I seemed to be primarily in orange/green mode, so these fit right in:

And I had in mind finding some luscious dots, like these. And look, there's the orange colorway of that leafy green I wished I gotten more of in Maine. Lucky me, Bolt had the green, too, so I did get more of it:

FUTURE OBW:
I love this, although it's not my colors:

If Fabric Depot had had a brighter colorway* I would have gone for it. I went with this anyway because I had cut up some jelly roll strips of other Philip Jacobs prints like this for the hexies quilt in progress, and it translates extremely well to random small bits.

*likely they did and it was in someone else's cart; the store was so huge and busy, and the cutting table lines so long, it was impossible not to wonder what beauties were overlooked because someone else had picked them up first.

And, allthough it's not my colors, it is totally my Mom's palettes (pale blue, beige and brown, ashy everything else, yawn), so I got a big piece with a future One Block Wonder in mind. It will look great draped over the arm of her (boring beige) couch.

I thought I was done shopping when I happened upon the "novelty" section and picked up some more yardage with future just-for-fun OBWs and charity quilts in mind. I haven't taken pics of those yet, and they're in the washer, so you'll see them another time.

I also have not yet added up either my total yardage acquired or the damage done to my Visa balance. I briefly considered setting a fabric budget before leaving home, but knew there was no chance I would have stuck to it, so I did the sensible thing and took along a Visa card that's been hanging around with a zero balance for a few years, waiting for me to come up with a good reason to use it again. Fortunately my quilting sister is an even more avid stash-builder than I am, so my pile looked reasonable next to hers.

I also did the other sensible thing and took my machine in for servicing while I was away. I'd hoped to pick it up today, but am feeling less and less inclined to do any kind of errands; a hot bath and a nap and a few more megadoses of Vitamin C are more appealing at the moment. Looks like fabric fondling and daydreaming about new projects will be the extent of my sewing efforts for the next few days.