Fairy tale prints (prince. Geddit?)

I ordered these fabrics an age ago (well, a couple of weeks), and they've finally shown up! Not the fault of the lovely Etsy seller I ordered from (who shipped the very next day), just typical slow transit from the States.

 I'm absolutely loving the prints - The Owl and The Pussycat has long been one of my favourite poems. I remember reciting it for a school concert aged about 7 and being terribly pleased with myself.

The colours are that slightly muted tone you get from printing on unbleached linen, which works well with the fairy tale images, and the fabric is a cotton/linen blend (I think), so it's slightly more stable than pure linen, but a bit more interesting than acres and acres of perfectly flat quilting cotton.

I'm  debating between mixing this with plain linen or some matching Kona solids. I love the idea of eking the prints out with some solids mixed in, but I'm not sure I'll like the contrast of quilting cotton with this slightly more textured fabric. Saying that, I love the mix of fine and heavy cottons in the last quilt I made using vintage fabric, so maybe it would be fine. Not that I'm indecisive.

Incidentally, this fabric and many others will be featuring in my soon-to-be-released online textiles journal. Click on that link for more information about my latest obsession (and item-to-be-crossed-off on the Mother List)

In other news, isn't it funny how blog lives can run parallel? I was reading Meg's blog the other day (lovely blog, and she's written a book and everything. Green with envy, me? Never) and I saw that she too has given into the lure of Ottobre magazine. I finally gave in and ordered a copy a week or two ago after fruitlessly searching for months for nice and cheap boys' clothes patterns. Anyway, while I wait for my copy to come, I've been searching for some nice jersey fabrics to sew these amazing patterns with. Of course, Meg has beaten me to it and linked to a load of fabulous stores selling knits, but they are all based in the States. So, my dilemma is this: stick with cheaper, more boring, synthetic mix jersey fabrics available in the UK at very-cheap-per-metre or order a load from the States at -less-chap-per-metre-but-much-much-nicer? It's a pain, sometimes, living in the UK - so many of the homemaking sewists whose blogs I read are US based and have access to an enormous range of fabrics (including organic fabrics, which I really would prefer, but are mostly prohibitively expensive over here) within their own country at a reasonable price.

Now, how to persuade Adam into a Stateside road trip....

Comments

[ara jane]

oh, i just love the far far away 2 prints! i have a stack of the roses and moons just waiting to be cut up into something lovely. you might consider using some robert kaufman essex (a linen/cotton blend) for your coordinating fabric. it's not quite as thick as the heather ross linen/cotton, but i love the texture of it and it would be a terrific choice for a more consistent feel.

[Islay]

I thought about the Essex, but I can't easily get hold of a colour that might be good with it (besides one of the neutrals, but who needs neutrals!?). The downsides of being in the UK :)