I have had a Fabric Windfall

Partner and I are engaging with home improvements. We have different approaches to this. While I don't like it, I feel that, as part of the general social contract, you should make a bit of an effort to try to make your house look as if people live in it who have not been brought up by wolves. Partner feels – quite vocally - that if your house has a roof and a flushing toilet you have everything you could possibly need and anything else is Affectation (when I met partner he used to sleep on the floor. Without a mattress). So we spent the other morning having a full and frank discussion in a fireplace showroom. This is what we have got at the moment.

All this and woodchip too, can you even breathe for jealousy

So you can see I am not entirely unreasonable in feeling that some level of improvement might be theoretically possible. Anyway having finished being passive aggressive in front of a gentle old man who was trying to give us a quote (‘I think you’d better give him your phone number, Susie. You’re the person who deals with this kind of thing’), as we drove off so partner could be dropped off at the University Library to argue with them about their electronic catalogue (isn’t my life exciting?), I mentioned that I was heading off to Tesco car park to meet a man I had met on the internet who was going to give me some fabric offcuts. Partner looked at me. ‘You aren’t serious’ he said, flatly. ‘Yes I am’ I said, cheerfully. “I have met him on the internet. He said he had some spare fabric from his curtain business, and he is really nice.’ I saw Partner’s expression. ‘It’ll be fine!’ I said, defensively, as I imagined my final words being read out on News At Ten by someone solemn. ‘What could go wrong?’ Partner considered. ‘He could murder you’ he said. ‘He could murder you and bundle you into his van, and no one would ever see you again.’ He didn’t add, and then I wouldn’t have to bother with a new fireplace, but I’m sure he was thinking it. Honestly, I thought, no-one trusts anyone these days. I thought that in the half of my mind that wasn’t taken up with imagining headlines – Criminally Naïve Person Goes Looking For Fabric Offcuts And Finds Death Instead. Anyway I met my contact and you can tell that Partner was not right and I was, because I am blogging, and not from a deserted garage somewhere in Dartmoor with my leg tied to a chair. But, this is the thing: the fabric offcuts were absolutely amazing. My idea of a fabric offcut is something 5” square and a bit creased. This is what he gave me:

You could furnish a house with that!

This is better furnishing fabric than anything in my house. And in great big bits! I am stroking it thoughtfully. It is a sensory education. But that isn’t all. Look -

I could make something that needs more than a fat quarter!

Fabric on rolls! I am overwhelmed! And there are foam offcuts and bits of wadding as well! And the marvellous thing is, this is leftover fabric that my wonderful contact didn’t need, so we are saving it from being thrown away! I am blown away by my good fortune – thank you, Pelmetman – and I am excitedly thinking of what I can make. I was intending to make my square patchwork bag, but some of the bits of fabric are so big and with such nice prints I’m not sure I want to patchwork them – anyway, I will see. There is some cotton interfacing which is certainly whispering ‘tie-dye me and make me into an a-line skirt’.

I have spent the day deconstructing ties so I can use the silk to make a skirt and now I feel quite cross-eyed but I am going to spend the evening knitting on my Citron because I will finish that Citron even if it kills me, and it very likely will.