Fabricgate

Fabricgate: The True Story of How the Blogosphere Saved My Nursery

(subtitle: #projectgetbabyellisonherbumpers)

You may recall that on Friday, when re-telling the story about how my friend and I started sewing the bumpers for the nursery, that I mentioned that I'd need to run back to the store for more fabric to complete the project. You probably actually DON'T recall that, since it was a minor detail so inconsequential that it was just a side note inside of parenthesis. That is indicative of how unimportant the fact was: we ran short on fabric. After work Friday, I would run back by the fabric store and pick up the last yard-and-a-half that I needed. Then we would be able to finish the job. No big deal.

As planned, we went to Joann's after work. I quickly located several of the fabrics I bought three weeks ago (coordinating fabrics in the same 'line' as the bumper fabric), but couldn't locate the actual fabric I needed. That's weird, I thought. They were all together last time. They weren't on clearance or anything. Just regular fabrics in the regular fabric section...and it's only been a few weeks. Probably they just ran out at this store. I'll go to another fabric store and look there. Obviously I am uneducated in the art of fabric-buying...I assumed they had pretty much the same fabrics at every store. Ha. After texting Catherine about the no-luck at Joann's and my plans to drive to Hobby Lobby and Hancock, she informed me that different stores carry different brands and that I probably would NOT find it at either of those stores. She suggested I look online and order there (or drive to another town with a Joann's and look). 

After arriving home, I set out on what would turn out to be several hours of internet sleuthing. Luckily I had some scraps/edge pieces of the fabric so that I could see what brand it was-- that definitely helped. What didn't help was that no matter what I did, I could NOT find the fabric on Joann's webpage. Other fabrics by that brand? Yes. The other fabrics that were in the nursery? Yes. The fabric I really needed to finish my last two bumpers? NO. Hmmmm...

Finally, some advanced Googling/Pinteresting took me back to the Joann's webpage via some weird 'back door' or something, and there was my fabric:

YAY MY FABRIC!!

Oh wait. NOT YAY. Please see the small print (follow the arrows).

MAJOR NOT YAY. What?! 

Like any normal person, I screen-shotted the page and posted it to my Instagram with a #craftfail hashtag. This seriously bummed me out. I mean, let's keep it in perspective-- it's not the end of the world. I could piece together my scraps and have some seriously seam-y final 2 bumper pads, but I could have those seam-y sides be the ones that face the wall and no one would be any the wiser. Really not the end of the world. A bummer, but one I can probably live through. I continued on my internet hunt, hoping I could find some other retailer that would have the fabric in stock...while simultaneously convincing myself it would be totally fine if I couldn't. Worse things have happened. Ellison won't be scarred for life if two of her six bumpers have *gasp* extra seams where I piece the fabric together. Hopefully.

But the internet had other plans for me.

When I looked back at my Instagram, I discovered that some friends of mine were equally horrified at this tragic turn of events. People were suggesting webpages to hunt on for fabric (no dice). Even more, people were offering to go to their local Joanns to scour the clearance racks for the fabric! Ummm...wow. Really??! My awesome IG friends even birthed (heh heh) a hashtag for the event: #projectgetbabyellisonherbumpers !! I mean, you know it's serious when there's a dedicated hashtag involved. Fo' real. So in no time flat, I had several offers from people to go look at their Joanns the next day (it was late Friday by this time). My heart was so happy-- look, baby Ellison...people are either totally cray-cray or they REALLY LOVE YOU A LOT ALREADY because they are willing to wake up on Saturday mornings and go hunt for fabric for a girl and a baby they don't even really know. Ridiculous. And awesome.

In the meantime, I (and a few other resourceful friends) found a lady on Etsy selling 'my' fabric. For a freaking ridiculously marked-up price, but still. So I rested easy Friday night knowing that if the 'nation-wide scavenger hunt' didn't pan out with any fabric, I could still get it from Etsy.

No need. By 10 a.m. Saturday morning, I had this text from Amanda (side note: do you have as much trouble differentiating between my twelve thousand blog friends named Amanda as my husband does? It's really ridiculous.):

VICTORY IS MINE!!! Or...hers, actually. But still mine too. Upon visiting her local Joann's and talking to the folks working there (what a concept, I could have tried that too and saved everyone some trouble...hindsight and all that), she discovered that the fabric had been discontinued and was available at only two stores in the state: Conyers (metro Atlanta) and Augusta (where my parents live and where I'd originally bought the fabric in the first place). Since Amanda was already planning to go to Zoo Atlanta that morning and Conyers was 'on the way' (so she says...I haven't looked at a map yet to see if this is actually true), she just went to the Conyers store and bought the rest of the bolt. 

We met up later that afternoon at a Target about halfway between our houses. This is what it looks like when you meet up with the person that just saved your nursery:

Amanda seemed surprised that I'd want to take a picture. HAHAHAHAHA. Are you kidding me? One day when I bore Ellison with the story of how it took a village to make her nursery, I'll need this photographic evidence. So we had a fun little 20-minute hangout in Target and the Target parking lot and it was a picture-perfect ending to our (not-actually-really-a-crisis) 22 hour 'Fabricgate' situation. Amanda-- THANK YOU! And thanks to all the rest of you who volunteered to go hunt, too!! You have no idea how happy this whole thing made me. Also, you have no idea how hard it was to explain to the people who don't really 'get' blogging/blog friends how it was that people I don't actually 'know' from all over the country were hunting through dusty piles of fabric just for some silly bumpers. I can't really explain it either. But it's pretty freaking awesome.

So #projectgetbabyellisonherbumpers was a raging success. Not that I've actually finished making them or anything. But at least now we can. The weekend was fun and productive in other ways, too, but I think that the fabric scavenger hunt put the biggest smile on my face. You guys are awesome.

I found this fun pillow (to go in the glider) on clearance at Target-- isn't it a perfect match??! Also got the fun little box to the side to hold wipes/random things. All in all, a good weekend for the nursery.