WA Fabric Spree

While over here in Perth I thought I’d spend some time at the local fabric stores looking for some more fabric for my genome quilt.

The first store I visited was Homespun Workshops in Willagee. Early in the day but by far the most successful of the trip. It's actually pretty near to my parent's house so I suspect I will be visiting there again in the future. They had a lovely selection of fabrics, very diverse and all very beautiful, the store was a pleasure to browse and the staff very friendly and helpful.

I ended up getting these five fabrics. On the left is a white-on-white fabric with a sort of dotted cross pattern on it that hasn't come up that well in this photo but is more clear in the photo at the bottom of this post. Also some green to bulk up that end of the spectrum, some gorgeous teal with white spots, some navy and white spots and some blue/navy with a kind of tree pattern on it.

Down the Leach Highway and up the Stirling highway, the next store I visited was Calico & Ivy in Mosman Park. Another beautiful store with a great range. They had a very impressive range of liberty fabrics and also a very extensive plain fabric selection.

I ended up getting a white with pale greyish blue spots, a white on cream this time with a text design, and a plain teal/green.

The next store on my trip was Materialise in Nedlands. A small shop but they've definitely made the most of the space they have. Sadly they didn't have anything that suited my very specific requirements (well they did, but I already had it!) so I left empty handed.

After a slight detour because I missed a turning next I arrived at Hot Possum in Wembley. They had an absolutely amazing selection of fabrics, all very modern and very brightly coloured. If I was simply filling my stash I could spend FAR too much money in there! Sadly for me, but luckily for my bank balance, I'm being very strict with myself and only buying fabric for the genome quilt. Hot Possum also had notably friendly and helpful staff.

I bought the following four fabrics at Hot Possum. Two more white on whites with different designs and two teal based ones. I'm very happy with the one on the right in particular as it has a larger print than most of the other fabrics I've bought so will hopefully break up the small prints a bit.

After a quick break for lunch the next store on my adventure was Bassendean Fabric and Craft in Bassendean, which while it had a pretty extensive selection didn't have anything that particularly caught my eye so I left that store empty handed too.

After getting thoroughly lost a couple of times the last shop on my trip was Kraft Daze Sewing World in Maddington which had a modest but good selection of fabrics and I ended up buying this beautiful grey on white fabric.

Quite a successful day I'd say; 6 fabric stores & 13 new pieces of fabric.

Here's what all the fabric I have for the quilt looks like now:

I have 17 darks and 14 whites, getting closer to what I need. There are also a few of solids I have seen that I will get at some point (including Kaffe Fassett shot cottons in Aegean and Viridan, gorgeous!!).

When I last discussed this quilt I hadn't decided what size blocks to do but have since bitten the bullet and decided to go for 3" blocks. Andi brought up a very good point in her comment however, how am I going to quilt it? I currently have no idea, either on the quilting design or the colour thread to use... any suggestions?

(all photos in this post are clickable to see them larger)