New quilt shop

Wait, one more thing, before I wash my hair and eat dinner and read some more on "The Horse, the Wheel, and Language" (which is pretty fascinating, at least what I can get out of it - a lot of the discussion of the different archeological "layers" and the different culture-names kind of make my eyes glaze over, but that's probably because I lack background in that area, so Vorbolnyzta Layer I doesn't meant to me what it would mean to a real archaeologist.)

Even though I didn't get to do much because I was sick for part of break, I did get out to a new-to-me quilt shop. This place is actually a warehouse (it's called Boline's, named after the people who own it). They don't advertise because most of their business is traveling around to, and selling at, shows. And also I think they don't carry the very latest up-to-the-minute fabrics. (And it seems they MAINLY carry the Marcus Brothers line. Some quilt shops do that - carry one line to the exclusion of others). But her prices were good.

One of the neat things the store does, is they have a whole lot of "five yard kits" - five yards of coordinating fabrics, and if you buy one, you get a set of four patterns the owner designed to work with five, one-yard pieces. (You only get the pattern with the kit; she does not sell them separately). She also has lots of half-yard pieces, and a number of bolts.

It's interesting to go to different quilt shops because there are SO many different fabrics on the market that each owner will select to their own tastes....the shop here in my town runs heavily to bright colors and Moda fabrics and juvenile prints; one of the ones down in McKinney features novelty fabrics and 30s reproductions...and so on. Boline's emphasizes Civil War reproduction fabrics. I haven't used those kinds of fabrics in a while (but I bought some of the "shirting" prints - so I can do a dark-and-light quilt using some of my stored-up Civil Wars). I also did buy two kits - one was on the sale table of "we're tired of looking at them" - it was the Cats go to Italy prints (there was a series of Cats Go To...prints a few years back, with London and Paris and Venice). I couldn't resist a second kit (they were, as I said, very reasonable - the sale kit was $25 for five yards of fabric, which is about half the price that fabric currently goes for per yard, and the non-on-sale kits were $35). The second kit was sort of Civil War (maybe a bit later) reprints in tans, grey-greens, and a greenish blue - a trellis print, and one with fanciful birds on it. Kind of like old crewelwork designs. Because there are four quilts in the free pattern, I can use different ones for each kit...The patterns are fairly straightforward looking and could be used with more, smaller pieces (like fat quarters), though then you wouldn't get the all-over design of the quilt. (I'm thinking - though I will e-mail her and ask permission first - that I could use the patterns for eventual Project Linus quilts, because they're fairly fast to cut and sew. She does ask that you not copy the pattern or use it for commercial uses, but I think a "charity gift" like a Linus quilt would be OK. Though, as I said, I'll e-mail and ask first...)

They also do scrap bags of fabric pieces smaller than 1/4 yard, that are left over from when she cuts for kits or at the end of a bolt.

The shop is in a warehouse area (my parents' town is too small to have a "warehouse district" but there is an area out near the airport where there are a number of warehouses). My mom only knew about it because a fellow quilter told her about it - as I said, the shop really doesn't advertise, because they're so often off at shows different places.