Where is Heaven?

by AmyDolores

I am a frequent visitor of the pattern section at Joanne’s. Some of the patterns I see – I can only imagine belong somewhere pious and confined by rules of modesty. Even the most beautiful of models look homely and ill fitted in their shapeless, stiff linen skirts, cutting off sharply at their ankles. With cruel judgement, I digress… there is also a plethora – literally drawers and drawers of modern, stunning (albeit too hard to attempt at the moment) patterns. I’ll spend ages looking through patterns and make that hefty $2 purchase only to breeze past the fabric section and head straight to my intended destination – SAS Fabrics.

How do I even begin to describe SAS?

Like this: It is simply the most heavenly form of organized chaos. Upon entering the store you’re immediately greeted by shoe-box-sized Tupperware bins, brimming with strange plastic trinkets I assume are for baby showers – plastic babies the size of newborn mice, candy-sized pacifiers and scrolling writing of congratulations in blue or pink. Turn around and you will find an entire wall, 7 or 8 shelves deep of rolled lace. Ugly old lady lace, beautiful Chantilly lace, lace that I am quite positive they ordered and back stocked since 1970. Massive rollers of leather, velvet, interior and exterior decorating fabric, bins of zippers,  a back wall of tulle, a section that is not called “tacky beauty pageant/flamboyant dance costume” section, but I’m calling it that.

And then… THEN the pile of my dreams. From afar, you simply see a sign that reads “dress fabric”… Getting closer you realize it is not a section of fabric for dresses but of EVERY clothing fabric you could imagine, dumped into a massive, 6 ft tall, black-hole of patterned, crazy, textured heaven. I imagine myself physically diving into it every time – just jumping in and going at it because I have an inkling that there is some seriously cool shit hiding in its depths – in the center at the very bottom.

But in real life, I simply rummage through the sides and find fabrics like this…

And then I make tops like this…

Did I mention that SAS Fabrics is CRAZY cheap? This fabric was like… $5 a yard! That’s not even real life. But SAS Fabrics never is…