Fred The Needle

Ouch. Bad pun pain. I walked in the door and was met by a sparkly orangutan card. And ‘Stairway to Heaven’ belting out over the stereo.
I have a bit of a perverse fascination with patchwork stores. I sew other things, but don’t quilt, and love the bolts of colourful fabrics piled up everywhere. This store has a bunch out the back of the more modern funky variety which you don’t see elsewhere. Odd vintage inspired prints like 1950’s illustrations, bizarre cat and poodle prints (good gracious) and enough fluffy fabric to keep my chenille-​obsessed mother happy. But to get to them, you have to walk through the much larger scrapbooking section.
I’m sorry, but I don’t get scrapbooking at all. It’s not craft if all you do is paste. And since much of the stuff you buy is self-​adhesive, it’s not even pasting. Craft for the creatively-​illiterate? Really, Martha Stewart cupcake wrappers? There’s a whole big world out there ladies…
So, scrapbooking and Led Zepplin. I could feel my brain going a bit fuzzy. Feared impending stroke as the poor overheated organ strained to compute. Walked past busy staffers and crocheted fish. Tiny alphabet stamps and enough ribbon to keep a few maypoles going. I’ll be back for the retro prints after I’ve calmed down…