International Yokohama Quilt Week: The Fabric

Joshua and I spent all morning browsing the shopping stalls at the International Yokohama Quilt Week. Digging for treasure and coming up with gold!

We criss-crossed the aisles, scouring the fat quarter bins for any bargains. Most were priced at around $4 per fat quarter, but we found a couple of stalls selling for as cheap as $2.50. Like this selection of Art Gallery Fabrics.

You can always count on finding adorable trim, and I was thrilled to find some sewing notion strapping and ruler twill tape. Perfect for my Secret Santa project…

Also picked up some random pieces – planes for my son “just in case”, a metre of Gnomas for backing a Christmas project, and a beautiful, rich Laura Gunn Canvas in brown for paper piecing. It is a really rich, deep colour which of course does not photograph well!

One aim was to stock up on some more low volume prints as I have one current and one future project that need them. I personally like really low volume stuff – like the grey print on the left and the bottom pale brown swirls. Prints that barely register as prints, and in pale grey or brown/beige. No colour, virtually nil saturation. But a couple of Moda prints add in nicely to the mix.

Last year, I was really disappointed with the Moda Japan stall. They only stocked precuts, which were ridiculously overpriced at $60 for a jelly roll or layer cake! This year the precuts were still expensive, but at $12 for a charm pack or $3.50ish for a fat quarter, it was much more palatable! And I ended up spending enough to get a free Moda tote bag. I feel very cool! Some Comma probably destined for my 100 Quilts For Kenya project; some Bobbins & Bits, Winter’s Lane poinsettias and an unidentified green print for a Christmas cushion; and, a charm pack just because I’ve always liked this line!

But our favourite find for the day had to be Botanics fat quarter for 210 yen – that’s about $2! We dug up all we could find and divvied them up. It’s funny… I originally wasn’t overly hooked on Botanics like the rest of the quilting world, although I did like the green prints. Then I decided the low volume greys and browns were good. And then I figured, well, that’s over half the bundle anyway… so I have ordered the whole bundle and it’s on it’s way to me now!

Linking up to Sunday Stash!