Flowlines #2, 12″ x 16″

I found this lovely plain, soft grey fabric several weeks ago on a remnant stall at the sunday markets.  It jumped up and down saying “Pick me! pick me!” and so I bought 5m @ what I thought was a good price, 100 pesos/m  (about  US$5 / meter).   It’s  cotton, about 60″ wide, which is unusual here in uruguay, and has a very slight sheen on one side.  It also contains about 5% viscose according to the stall holder.   While I worked with it during the following week, I had two thoughts – (1) ‘cheap’ as it was in Aus or US terms,  I should have haggled a bit over it, and (2) I should have offered to buy the lot – it was after all a remnant of hard to find cotton fabric, likely to never be repeated, etc.   It was so nice to work with, and these thoughts persisted, so last weekend I went back.  And after a search, the woman found the rest of the bolt which amounted to 6 and 1/2m, and sold the lot of me for $300,   US $15.  So averaging, yes it was a good price/metre.  I have also done some very small pieces using it as a background, and am having them photographed today.

So I’m happy with about  8-9 m in my stash, and will be using a lot more of this wonderful grey, until it runs out !  The stall holder is always there, I have bought things from her before, and this time left a card with my contact details on it asking her to  please phone me if she gets in any other plain cotton fabric with no designs on it.  Such stuff is needle-in-haystack value for patchworkers here.  And yet this fabric is so nice, a finer quality than any of the plains I have brought back from Aus or the US down the years.   I’ll be sorry when it’s all used up – but hey, it’s a wonderful thing about fabric that no matter where you are there is always some wonderful find of unusual quality or marvellous colour that  pops up unexpectedly to demand a purchase….