Feeding the beast

Sometimes you have to feed the beast, especially when the buffet is so cheap. "Huh?" you ask? Let me explain. As with many of my weekends these days, I was busy. Dinner out Friday night, quilt guild meeting Saturday morning, Dinner Club with the girls Saturday, the true need (but not desire) to go to work Sunday to prep for the week, quilts to quilt, quilts to piece, a book to finish, find time to breathe. So Saturday I stole a little time for myself and did a bit of a road trip. I was already half way to the middle of nowhere, so I decided to act on a rumor I had heard a while back that there was a hardware store that sold fabric. Yep, you read that right, a HARDWARE STORE THAT SELLS FABRIC. Why not, pretty day (ok, cloudy and cool), tank of gas, a few hours to waste (well, not really, but I was going to do it anyway). So I toodled on down 44 (farty-far in St. Louis speak) to the little hamlet of St. Clair, Mo. Hard to miss the Ace Hardware store on the main drag, mostly because the main drag is only a block long. I wish I had my camera with me because this place had everything- kitchen stuff, halloween decorations, local high school sweats, bird food, yarn, garden decorations, baskets, junk food, stationary, yankee candles, you name it (although I never did see any hardware stuff, must have been in the basement). And lo and behold, in the back was a fabric department. Some designer fabrics, some I've seen in national chains, all marked $3.99 a yard. All flat folds, most were about 5yards in length. Needless to say, I supported the local economy and walked out with several backs for quilts.

I am IN LOVE with the black and white!

The red had an interesting hand to it, and Kaffe Fasset for $4 a yard?!?!

Such a happy fabric!

Thank goodness I can support my fabric habit with my quilting. I also bought a bit of black and white ticking stripe (always see ticking in red or blue, this was a nice surprise), and a black on black/dark grey. Met some really nice locals who gave me a card for another quilt shop in Sullivan, Mo, but I didn't have time to go this weekend. They also let me in on a big secret... the hardware store does a big sale on their fabric twice a year, marking it down to $2.50 a yard. The next sale is one of the first two weekends in October. I will try my best to be too busy (like thats going to be hard!) to go to the sale. I need more fabric like I need another hole in my head. Of course, more fabric would be a lot less painful than a new piercing.......