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.

Ikea Trip(s)

I'm out of the hospital and feeling much better.  So good, that I went to Ikea twice this weekend.  Which is generally how many Ikea trips I make in a year.  However, our new house is MUCH closer to Ikea - as in, it doesn't feel like I should devote an entire day if I want to go shop there.  Just another reason why I love our new house.

I went the first time because my mom and sister were in town and wanted to go.  Luckily, Ikea has wheelchairs that you can borrow, so I got to relax and ride through the store like a queen.  I mostly picked up kitchen stuff, but I also grabbed a couple of green fitted sheets and pillowcases for my son's room.

They're "Last Chance" - so if you like them, hurry and go get them.  They didn't have any flat sheets at my store, so I'm going to have to work something out.

The next day, the boyfriend arranged to meet a seller from Craigslist at Ikea to buy some golf clubs.  And since we were already there, I talked him into going in and getting a couple of more sheets (can't be too careful when they're on clearance).

The sheets are "Dvala" and the best part is that they are only $4.50 each twin fitted sheet and $5.99 for two pillowcases.  I'm sure they're like 50 thread count or something, but we've had bedding from Ikea before and never had any problems.  I'm super happy about the color - a really saturated grass green that just pops.