I've been fabric shopping -- or at least trying to -- twice so far this week, but the selection was pretty dismal. I was helping my friend pick out fabric for her next couple of quilts and since fat quarters are on sale again, I wanted to find some more light browns for the spool quilt, and some really dark browns for the Irish chain I'm suddenly planning, and some reds for the red scrap quilt... I didn't find much.

And the yarn selection was worse! Michael's has SWS on sale for $1.50 a skein. I was sure they'd be out of that, but they were out of EVERYTHING! Joann's was just as bad, and even Walmart, who didn't have anything on sale, was the most picked over I've ever seen it. Hopefully it means they'll be bringing in something new and wonderful, but I'm not holding my breath.

I did get some great backing fabric at Joann's for $1.50 a yard. One is a kind of odd blue and brown vine pattern, but I think it'll be perfect for that blue bargello quilt I just finished. Janet gave me a basting gun for Christmas, so I think I'll use some of that polyester batting my sister handed down to me and try doing another quilt on my machine. Translation -- I want an excuse to play with my new toy and I'm not giving up rare longarm time for that quilt!

Thanks for the feedback on it, which I really appreciated. It definitely helps to have another set of eyes.