A Journey in Fabric

It's Wednesday and naptime. I should be cleaning bathrooms. I'll make this quick.

So way back in May or June I decided I needed to have my living room curtains completed and hung by August. And I went on a hunt for fabric that was finally concluded last week. Here's my trip...

Our living room walls are orange and khaki, so at first I thought about something like this. The orange matches perfectly, but when I brought this 1/4 yard home and held it up, it just looked too bland.

Then I brought home these two from the same line. I was pretty sure it was a no-go, but wanted to check. Randy confirmed it was definitely a no-go.

Then I decided that blue would be the accent color. I have a robin's egg blue teapot from a garage sale, and a smoky blue suitcase (part of a stacked suitcase end table) also from a garage sale. But it's really hard to find the right orange and blue fabric. Most of it is far too modern or retro. I want something classic enough that it will work with our funky vintage finds (as in the large trunk I want for a coffee table but haven't found in my budget).

For awhile I was convinced Kate Spain's new Moda line would be perfect. But this was the closest thing in her line I could find in both blue and orange, and it was all wrong. That was in late August.

By then I thought that maybe it would be best just to have blue curtains and make the room less monochromatic.

One day I was sorting through my growing fabric stash and found two fat quarters of this.

Perfect! The darker blue matches the suitcase and the background matches the teapot, perfectly blending everything. It's modern enough to be interesting, but funky enough to work with vintage garage sale finds. Only one problem. Hancock Fabrics didn't have yardage of it, just fat quarters. And there was absolutely no selvage with information on it. A search of Hancock's website revealed nothing.

I tried these two to see if they could work.

Neither did. Both were far too aqua. Although the picture doesn't show much difference from the other fabric there really is a big one.

A couple months later I was working on a Christmas gift and saw this piece I had sewn into a bag last year.

Love it! It was the same blue as the background of the Hancock Fabric. The swirl made it a little more formal to fit a living room but not too stuffy. And it was at Hobby Lobby, so I could get it pretty cheap. That was a few weeks before Ryder was born, so even though the thought ran through my mind that I should really go get it before they discontinued it or something, I was more focused on the pending large change in our household.

After Christmas I stopped by the fabric department to check it out only to find ONE yard remaining on the bolt. Discontinued. I bought the yard because I loved the fabric. But I need 5 1/2 yards. Calls to two other Hobby Lobbys only found me 3 more yards, so I gave up that one.

Two weeks ago I was again wandering through the fabric department at Hobby Lobby (sanity, please?) when I found this one.

I liked the blue background. The orange dot was perfect, and the other colors would allow for changing my accent colors. But polka dots? In my living room? No thanks.

The coordinating fabric in the line, on the other hand, was just right.

The paisley pattern makes it formal enough for a living room, but the colors are bright, so it's definitely not stuffy or formal. The blues and oranges were right, AND there was plenty of fabric on the bolt. I snatched it up. FINALLY.

I've decided on the following combo. The swirl fabric will be the rod pocket. It just needed a little something to offset all the paisley.

And that, folks, is my next Friday project. The fabric is washed, ironed, and waiting for naptime on Friday....if I ever get my bathrooms cleaned, that is.