JOLLIETEXTILES

I have recently returned from a holiday in Israel where I was lucky enough to find a wonderful fabric shop! In fact, there was an entire street of fabric shops, lots all side by side, the wares spilling out into the road – such a choice! People always say about taking an empty suitcase on holiday to fill up with fabric and local textiles but I’ve never been prepared. Needless to say I would organise myself better next time as the area in Tel-Aviv, a street called Nakhalat Binyamin, was a fabric lover’s paradise. I limited myself to one shop, picked out the night before when I saw some particularly vibrant cottons through the window. The Indian cottons above were my first choice, probably to make a small lap quilt – the fabric on the far right to be used as the backing.

There was so much choice in the highly decorative, sari type fabrics – beautiful colours and many embellished with sequins. In the end I took just half a metre of this fabric as it reminded me of the patterns I’d seen on some of the buildings. There are lots of tiny sequins under the hatched stitching.

I wish I had taken a photograph of all the fantastic trimmings that were in the shop – so difficult to select, particularly as I didn’t have a project in mind. In the end I just had one metre of the one above, once again because it resembled some of the buildings I’d seen in Israel. So back home I have put them to good use, making two smallish cushions, combining with some linen I already had. Plus I raided my ribbon and braid box, so apart from the pads I didn’t have to purchase anything else.