A thousand splendid fabrics

This is a little story about what happens in the new Information Age when you have someone:

1. Aspirational

2. Indecisive

3. Cheap

4. With a 3G Internet connection

5. Who is looking for fabric for a throw pillow

Result: You will spend a billion hours online. Your wrist will swell. Your butt will get gangrene. And you still may not find the Absolute Ultimately Most Perfect Fabric in the Universe.

It all started with this, our sofa:

Nice enough, but a bit bland. What it needs is some pattern, e.g. throw pillows. Then I discover The Most Beautiful Pillow Ever Made:

This is Thomas Paul's reef pillow in Java. Amazing. But it costs more than a barrel of oil. If I spent $100 on a pillow, I would have to put it in a glass case with a light on it. So, I went looking for a knockoff. I started innocently enough with fabric.com. Guess what - there's a lot more than your mother's Waverly out there these days. From there I jumped to other fabric sites, took a long detour through quilting fabrics and then back to decorator fabrics. Anne Marie Horner, Joel Dewberry, Robert Kaufman, Robert Allen, Braemore, etsy, Mod Girls, Moda. After days and days, I narrowed my selection down to this:

Dear Internet: I hate you.