Fabrics

Today I received a package of fabrics from my mother. She sent an assortment of cottons with African motifs. The fabrics are very cool and will work very well together. I think that there's a quilt in that mix waiting for me.

The array of fabrics available to quilters in the US is staggering. Mainstay calico prints now compete for shelf space with increasingly sophisticated collections of fabrics sporting the most ingenious designs and wonderful colors, enough to spin the head of any quilter with all the possibilities these fabrics present. Unfortunately, here in the Virgin Islands, these fabrics are hard to come by. In St. Croix there are three fabric stores, one of which carries no cottons (to my total disbelief), and the other two have very limited selections.

I get the bulk of my fabrics from NJ. When I travel back I make certain to take a trip to the fabric store, and in between trips, my best friend John W. (who enjoys selecting colorful fabrics) goes to a couple of great shops near him and sends me what I need. Now my mom is having fun shopping on my behalf and I'm feeling very fortunate to have this level of support. It's great to open the box and look through the colors and textures of each fabric, knowing that each one is full of potential and somewhere down the road, in the middle of a yet-unforeseen project, I will put it to good use.