DO NOT WANT.

1. scuttlebutt is the meeting I was dreading IS going to be a "there's a big problem" meeting.

2. Driving home from church today, I saw a sign on the local quilt shop: "GOING OUT OF BUSINESS SALE, EVERYTHING 50% OFF."

I verified it on their Facebook page.

I'm devastated. This was one of the few things in this town I really truly loved. And yes, I have "enough" fabric but I relied heavily on them for "emergency" needs and also for things like longarm quilting. (Maybe I have to go in there and ask if they can give me references on local longarmers, if there are any).

It makes me sad because while I can and do hand quilt, it's so slow, it takes so long, and it's such delayed gratification, I admit I mostly don't do it. (I have a small quilt that's been in the frame for two years). Maybe I try to do more hand quilting, I don't know. (And then the blog posts go to once-weekly, because I have so little to report on that I do.)

I hope I can find someone else who can do longarming. And I know it's possible to quilt on a home machine, but ugh, that sounds really not-fun. (If I had LOTS of money, time, and space, I'd buy a long arm machine MYSELF and take classes on using it. But I have nowhere to put one, the good ones cost as much as a late-model used car, and I don't have time to learn). 

I'm just.....I'm not happy. So I guess it's another cycle of the random crap that happens in the Universe being random crap that's bad for me?

I have no idea if the closure of the shop is "We can't keep the business going any more" (the owner was older) or if it's that the bad economy locally did it. Really, of late, it's like the recession has hit us - we are being told to brace for yet more budget cuts at the university, we've been warned that maybe we will have to do more teaching for no more pay (a de facto pay cut), and just....I don't know.

Also, part of it is I know lots of people have to economize, and the wal-mart sells a little yarn and fabric. So maybe people get there stuff there. And the red heart yarns are fine for some things, and in fact I use them for some amigurumi - but not for sweaters or other things for me.

The next nearest quilt shops are in McKinney. I haven't been there in AGES because of the endless road construction. The next nearest yarn shop is in Plano, where I won't go, because of the traffic.

I hate that we seem to be going back to like it was when I first moved here, where every six weeks or so I managed a Sherman run and had to desperately stock up on things (because at one point, I couldn't even get hoisin sauce - which I don't eat any more anyway - locally.) And yeah, I can mail order stuff, but not much food - I know Amazon sells some stuff but I'm leery because I've seen complaints that canned goods and stuff were close to or at their expiration date when shipped.

But, just, dang it. I'm sad and I'm frustrated and I'm dreading next week.

I was gonna work on the current quilt top today, but the thought of not being able to get it quilted easily makes me too sad. So I don't know, either I pull out the stalled hand-quilting one and try to finish it (and, oh crud, I was going to buy binding at the quilt shop....) or I work on the Moondancer stuffie.