"Pick Up and Put Down"

That’s what B, one of our all-time favourite people calls walking through posh stores where you can’t afford anything.

I got out of work on time on a Friday night for the first time in many nights and A met me at the train station and we headed into London. We both have colds and it was one of those chilly and rainy nights so we didn’t go far, but needed to buy a gift for her French host family. I had a couple of ideas in mind based on some suggestions from my friend L. I can’t really pick out a gift for anyone without major assistance, LOL. We were going to go by Fortnum and Mason and pick up some tea but we headed to Liberty first. This store is fabulous. The building alone is gorgeous inside and out and filled with tons of stuff that had A going “Who can afford this? Who buys this?” Up on the 3rd floor they have a sewing department. Did I ever think we’d be spending a Friday night looking at buttons? Probably not, but that’s what we did. It was the fanciest sewing department I have ever seen and everything was beautiful down to the pin cushions. They had these birds for sale that were little statues probably about four inches tall that instead of being covered with feathers were covered with bits of fabric of different patterns and colors like quilts. Hard to describe without making them sound tacky but they were very intricate. A wanted one until we saw the £150 price tag.

The V&A Museum just opened a quilt exhibit so in conjunction with that Liberty had some quilts displayed. I covertly took a quick picture of some of them. The quilting supplies they were selling were amusing. My grandmother was a master quilt maker and watching her work, it was always about taking the scraps of other projects and making something beautiful with what is left. This store was selling little packs of swatches of “American Retro” fabrics for £35 ($55-$60). This is not your grandmother’s quilt shop!

We left with gift in hand. The exchange student’s mother is a children’s writer so we got a really cool children’s picture book with retro illustrations of London and a patterned Easter Egg box filled with chocolates.