Free Fabric Fatigue

Can you believe such a thing as "free fabric fatigue" exists? Yesterday saw me at the fabmo.org building in Mountain View, the town where Google has its HQ, about 45 mins drive south of San Francisco. I was with Ambur, who does actual installation art pieces and exhibits them and everything but I had found it and suggested going after some google research consisting of "Fabric San Francisco" typed into the search engine. I therefore felt responsible for our presence and concerned it might disappoint.

It didn't disappoint. That is just part of one table and there were at least five, plus rolls of fabric in boxes and stands around the room. And then there was the room of wallpaper samples...

...and then the room of tile, marble and vinyl bits.

BUT...after half an hour of going through endless piles of silk, wool, cotton and the odd polester/viscose thing I was feeling like I'd had my fill. There was TOO MUCH free stuff. Much like my first visit to Scrap when I first got here. Still, I managed to pick some up.

Neutral linens - either for embroidery backgrounds or for ickle niece's height chart.

Interesting patterns - some embroidered.

Woven.

Dotty.

Wool (yes, that is a real Ralph Lauren label - this was high end stuff).

Pure silks and silk/cotton blends.

That's most of it but there is more, plus some slate tiles I'm making into coasters, some vinyl for carving and printing and some cotton fabric bits for patchwork.

There can't be many more free/discounted fabric places left for me to find...

Hunting the White Elephant

When I heard about the Oakland Museum White Elephant Sale my mind went back to the flea market I visited a few days before leaving Tokyo. That had been ginormous. There was no way this one could be as big. Ha.

19,000sqft. They had everything. 

(I wanted all of these hangers but limited myself to just five at a dollar each.)

I fecking hate brussel sprouts. Why would someone ever make this tureen?

Since Pooch hasn't yet been paid either wages or transfer costs we are on a budget and I only had $50 with me. Plus I don;t know where we'll be living or what we'll need for the place. My take-home was therefore confined to some pristine photo albums, lovely vintage photo frames, beautiful silk padded hangers and this:

Fabric had been washed, ironed and sorted into 1lb bags. I got three plus a few odd FQs. I also got a novelty scrap bag.

I'll be adding these to my collection of scraps for my niece's i-spy quilt.

I am hoping there will be similar sales in about a month's time when we'll be moving into our proper flat.

Chinese New Year Parade!

This was my first ever chinese new year parade. I am sure there must have been one in Tokyo but I seem to have missed it. This one is quite epic - even Pooch came along.

Lots of big dragons...and a few little ones.

This float was shooting glitter everywhere. So pretty!

Lots of small children dancing and twirling things.

And then there was a dragon overload.

The little kids watching squealed with delight as they came snapping at them. And special mention to the dragons up poles in the back of cars.

Pooch, who like a lot of hounds does not like crowds or loud noises, defied my expectations by liking the marching bands the most.

This one was about two hundred strong. There were also the alternative ones. These kids were playing buckets.

The kanji for this year's animal can be translated as a goat, ram or sheep. Being a dedicated knitter, I have to go with the sheep.

Awesome.