Little Piece of Heaven...

The other day The Boy mentioned that he was going to head out to a computer store for some little do-hickey that he needed and asked if I'd like to come along.  Not wanting to miss a potential opportunity, I Google mapped 'craft stores' and was disappointed with what came up in the area of the computer place.  Until I saw a tiny little orange dot and ran the cursor over it.  What I found seemed too good to be true.

We headed out, picked up the part The Boy wanted, almost ran over a man crossing the road (in the middle of a busy street, waving his arms and umbrella - oh, Vancouver!) and then parked on a small street.  The object of my interest wasn't opened yet so we decided to have breakfast at a little cafe next door.  This was also a fabulous find but I'll share more about that here.

Breakfast over, we wandered back next door and...oh, my.  LOVE.  Instant, forever, no questions asked, LOVE.  My heart was all a-pitter patter as soon as I walked in the door of Spool of Thread.  I was too overcome with glee to remember that I have a camera on my phone and could have taken pictures but if you go to the website you can see the space.

Now, I'm fairly new to sewing, having only made a few things back in the day but I know that this store was a good find.  For example, they stock all 221 colours of Kona cotton.  Seeing it all displayed is like happening upon a rainbow you can touch.  They also have bolts and bolts of gorgeous cotton prints, some linens and a few other bits and pieces.  I read a number of craft blogs and have some seen some lovely fabrics that I've drooled over - it was so great to see some of those same fabrics right there in front of me.

In addition to the fabric, Spool of Thread also carries a number of patterns including this one:

Tiny elephants!

I bought this pattern after a failed attempt to leave the store.  Little 4" high elephants for pin cushions, or a  toy for a small person, or maybe just to have around because...tiny elephants!  The pattern is by Heather Bailey.  I haven't checked out her other patterns yet because I know that will be very dangerous territory for my bank balance.  Since I don't actually have a pin cushion, and I don't want the standard tomato, I had to have this pattern.  Now I just have to decide on a fabric - I have four set aside.  Maybe I'll just make four elephants.  Anyone need a pin cushion?  Oh, and the tape in the photo didn't come from the fabric store.  I was just excited to have found some washi tape the other day and wanted to share.

I didn't walk out of Spool of Thread without some fabric.  These were also purchased after trying to leave the store the first time:

Wiener dogs and chevron stripes!

No idea what I'll be using these for yet but they were so colourful and begging to be plucked from the offcuts basket.

As I said, all 221 colours of Kona cotton were available to me so what colours did I walk out with?

Black and grey, of course!  The grey and the dots are for a particular project (that I will reveal more about later) and the black was just because it seemed like a good idea.

So, that was my adventure and I know that I will be heading back to Spool of Thread in the future.  One of the owners was running the shop the day I was there and he was super friendly (and possibly a little frightened when I said I wanted to move in).  They also offer classes for various projects and I'm sure I'll be signing up for a few of those at some point as well.  I'm just so happy to know this is available to me only a bus ride away (or a car ride, if The Boy is willing).