Fabrics Update

My love affair with fabric has been pretty well-documented on this blog, as well as my tendency to over-analyze every purchase for our house.  For example, it took me an entire year to pick the fabric for my dining room chairs.  A year.  However, lately I've been finding the "perfect" fabrics for my to-do list and I'm excited to be moving out of the endlessly hunting phase.

First off, an update on the Robert Allen Tidal Bay purchase from Fabricguru.com.  I bought it on Monday and it arrived on Friday, which I thought was a pretty nice turnaround.  Here it is spread out on my bed - pardon the poor lighting as I forgot to take these pictures while the sun was still shining.

When I saw it in person, I told the boyfriend that I wanted to make love to it.  That's not a totally weird reaction, right?  Having not ordered a sample, I was apprehensive it would turn up and be hideous, but it's absolutely perfect.  Well, except for the flaw.

But that's why I scored it for the discount price of $5.95/yard.

The streak repeats about every 24 inches, but is luckily placed about 2/3 from the top of the fabric.  Which is perfect for what I want to use the fabric for.  Once I make the folds on the roman shade you won't see it at all.  They still have a few yards left at Fabricguru, but if you would rather not worry about the flaw, I also found a few colorways at the Online Fabric Store starting at $11.30/yard.

Besides being totally inappropriate with some fabric, this also happened at my house this weekend.

That's right - we put up the Christmas tree before Thanksgiving.  I'm still not sure how the boyfriend got me to go along since it is our tradition to put up the tree on November 26, but it has helped me get into the holiday mood.  I still haven't bought the first present, but I have started the decision-making process.

Anyway, check out our sad, naked windows.  Still curtainless after all these months.  But I've finally picked a fabric!  (I think.)

Kind of out there, I know.  In my head, it's looking like a perfect combination of glamour, rock, and global.  I'm hoping that the print is small enough and subtle enough that it reads as a print without drawing a lot of attention.  I plan on using black trim similar to this picture. 


Dwellers without Decorators

The colors look perfect online.  Of course, I can't find a swatch for less than $12 after shipping, so I'm going to bite the bullet and order a few yards before taking the plunge of buying all 24 yards.  Hopefully I'm still as sold once it gets here.

And lastly, remember the bolster pillows I scored a few weeks ago?  They're for my son's room and I'm 99% sold on this fabric:

Fabric.com

It also doesn't have a sample - so annoying.  However, I think I only need 2 yards, so it's not an investment to buy it sight unseen.  It's a close enough match to the blue of his bookshelves and a small enough print that it should work well with the large scale stripes on the bedding.

So, that's it.  Decisions made and hopefully I'll be putting them in my shopping carts soon.  How about you?  Have you finally made a choice on something for your home?  Surely someone else is indecisive as me?

Robert Allen Tidal Bay

I have been relentlessly stalking this fabric for about two weeks now.


Robert Allen Tidal Bay in Pewter

I stumbled across it during one of my frequent fabricguru.com virtual window shopping expeditions.  I love fabricguru - it's lots of remnants and slightly damaged fabrics at discount prices.  It's like an outlet mall for fabric.  They have some great brands, like Duralee, Kravet, Brunschwig & Fils, and (obviously) Robert Allen.

I previously saw the print (in navy) on Knight Moves.  I remembered really liking it then too.

There are lots of colorways.  Fabricguru has it in "navy," "pewter," and "ice".  The Designer's Attic (a discount fabric blog) sold 2 1/4 yards of it for $57 in "cafe".

Fabricguru is selling it for $5.95 a yard!

Why so cheap?  Well, it has a flaw.  "A white spot in middle." 

Now, as much as I adore fabricguru, this is one of the two reasons I've never bought anything from them before.  First off, they have a flat rate shipping fee of $4.99.  That's great if you're buying tons of fabric, but for two yards I kind of feel ripped off.  Secondly, since they are selling damaged goods online, wouldn't it make sense to take a picture of the damage?  Sometimes they do - such as the navy colorway's "scattered white spots" - but for the pewter, if there's a white spot in the picture, I can't find it.

I was a little torn.  Should I buy it and risk getting it with a huge white spot in the middle that I can't cover up?  Should I buy extra just in case?  Maybe it's not worth the risk?

I checked with the boyfriend, who, for the first time ever, actually liked something I showed to him.  In fact, I think he was a little jealous that I wasn't buying it for our room, but for our son's room.  I want to make a fake roman shade for the large window in his room and I thought this would be the perfect fabric.  I plan on using orange trim along the bottom, sort of like this picture.

Via DecorPad

With the boyfriend's enthusiastic approval, I decided to buy the fabric, risks and all.  However, with Christmas on the way, I had to wait for "splurge" money from the sale of the blue bed.  You can imagine how frustrating that was - the bed sitting on Craigslist for a week while I agonized over whether the fabric would sell out.  Originally, they only had 26 yards and over the next week I saw that slowly drop to only 19 yards.

Luckily, I was finally able to pull the trigger yesterday.  I bought 2 yards, which should be plenty to make the shade.  I'll do an update when it gets here.  There's still a couple of yards left if anyone else is interested.  Now that I've gotten the few yards I need, I have no problem passing along the good deal.