Liberty of London

"On my summer vacation I went to.....

LIBERTY OF LONDON."

Yes, that is how my back-to-school essay will begin this year. Well, I didn't go to London just to see the Liberty store, but you know that it was an important historical site for me to visit. You know how that goes, don't you?!?

Liberty of London is such a great place to be. First of all, the building is incredible. It's an old, half-timbered building--very large. Inside are beautiful carved moldings and woodwork. And a magnificent old staircase. (They have elevators, too!)

Liberty of London sells a lot of clothing, both their own label and other designers, as well as their fabric. Also stuff like scarves, tapestries, accessories, etc.

But you know that I like the fabric area best! I could spend hours there fondling the fabric. If you're not familiar with Liberty fabrics, they are incredibly beautiful, finely woven and smooth fabrics.

I had to limit myself to not buying the whole store! So I settled on two prints. The colorful one above is a "typical" Liberty print. (I've gotten so I recognize them when I see them around.) Not quite sure what I'll do with this, although I think it would make a very nice long-ish skirt.

And this one is more monochromatic, shades of grays and a little beige that doesn't show up very well in the photo. I really like it, and am thinking it might make a good scarf.

Then I bought this small bundle of a variety of prints. There were 15 pieces of fabric, all a uniform width and ranging from about 9" in length to 15" or so. These will definitely find a place in a quilt, or quilted item.

(BTW, the strips of binding tied around the bundle say "Fabrics Worn and Washed," but they are new fabrics. They were just put together by the company called "Fabrics Worn and Washed.")

This shows them all spread out. Aren't they pretty!!!?! The purple fabric, the fifth from the bottom, was very familiar to me, as I have a blouse out of that fabric. I bought the blouse several years ago on another trip to London.

Now I have the fun job of finding places to use all these pretty fabrics.

Urban Burp (Oh, pardon me!)

I finally went to Urban Burp today for the first time!

Not exactly sure why it took me

so long, but some things are like that.

Urban Burp is a vintage fabric store with an amazing collection of fabrics.

It is located near

the North Beach

neighborhood of San Francisco.

I had heard that it is a little challenging to find,

but I didn't have much trouble.

It's a delightful store, not

very large, and the owner is

very friendly and helpful.

She asked me what I was interested in, then

gave me a quick tour of the shop, telling

me which wall has

30's-60's fabric, for example, where the upholstery fabric is, etc.

I had a nice little browse-around,

and ended up choosing some

very nice fabrics. I'm not really into vintage fabrics

(or even reproduction fabrics),

but I found a few really pretty prints.

The photos, from top to bottom, show my stack

of fabrics, some pretty morning glory fabric,

the nice white-on-cream print,

and the lovely tie-dye looking piece that might

be useful for a landscape piece.

Nice treasures, don't you think!?!