And now, for some fabric....

The day I took my machine to the machine doctor, I also got to pick out some quilt fabric as my Mother's Day surprise. I wasn't expecting The Chemist to pay for my selections, so I was a bit more conservative than I might have been otherwise.....maybe that was his plan all along!

I got a few "just for fun" fat quarters (small pieces of fabric that are a quarter-yard, cut wide instead of long) (or something like that....), but the fabric I'm going to show you today I got meters and meters of!

First, I chose this for the back of The Writer's quilt -- perfectly fun & funky for a teenage boy, I think, and busy enough to hide what I'm sure will be imperfect quilting stitches when I reach that stage of things.

The Writer loves it.
Said it reminds him of puzzle pieces. Which makes him think of Lego. Which makes him think of Minecraft.
Which all makes me smile, because my brain makes the same seemingly random jumps & connections.

And then....then I saw this. My eyes nearly popped, my jaw hit the floor, and I knew I had to have it.

The sidewalks of Brazil, in fabric.
Which just so happens to be what inspired my entire "coming soon" Brazil quilt.
The sidewalks, I mean, not this fabric.
Match made in heaven, I tell you. 

This, my friends, is a rendering in fabric of the sidewalk pattern that is so famous here and seen alongside nearly every street I've ever walked in all of Brazil.

This, my friends, is the exact pattern that inspired my Brazil Quilt design. This, my friends, is serendipity at its finest, the perfect fabric to back my Brazil Quilt, when it ever gets its turn to be made.

I will likely tea (or more likely, coffee) dye it so that it becomes off-white/beige/tan instead of stark white, but other than that it is absolutely perfect. I was, am, so excited to find this! My crafty-sewing-quilting friends will get it; I hope all of you understand.

Have you ever found something that you knew you "just had to have"? What was it? How did you know?