A long, long time ago, my mother  would make me go to the fabric store with her all the time.  It was terribly boring, and it smelled bad.  Around this same period of time, my grandmother gave me a Wuzzles sleeping bag for Christmas.  I loved it, and pretty much exclusively slept in it for the next few years.  Unforunately, as a result of my fabric store experiences, when I opened the package containing the tightly wound sleeping bag, I thought it was just a box of fabric.  Very disappointed with this terrible present, the polite 5-year-old that I was shouted in disbelief: “Fabric?!?”, began crying, and stormed out of the room.  Needless to say, my grandmother was very impressed with the impeccable behavior I demonstrated and was equally impressed with the stellar parenting it clearly stemmed from.

Fast forward 20 years.  I love fabric.  Perhaps love isn’t the right word.  There are actually few times in my life where fabric is even something I consider.  Now just happens to be one of the few times I am forced to think about it.  I’ve decided, after much soul searching, that the linens in my guest room should be black and white.  With this in mind, my mom sent me swatches from fabric.com.  From these samples, I need to choose something for the bedspread and the pillows.  (It’s a daybed, so it will have a couple bolster pillows for the ends and likely between 2 and 5 other pillows along the back.)  Here are the samples, sorta:

The small, rectangular piece is black with little yellow fleur-de-lis patterns, along with a tiny dot of red on each flower, which I like because it is subtle but would sorta pull in the red from the walls.  I also really like the two more floral-looking patterns, but I’m not sure if I like them enough to do either by itself and I don’t think they would look good mixed with a different one.  One is black with thin, white flowers, and the other is mostly white with the more complicated, old-fashioned looking design.  Obviously, I don’t really have the vocabulary to discuss this.  Finally, the one that is just striped is nice because the white stripes are actually kinda creamy, and it matches the bedskirt that I got last month for that bed.    Any thoughts that anyone has would be appreciated.  Also, I’ve got to make some placemats/a table runner for my dining room table, and I am currently accepting suggestions.

As a reminder, this is what the bedroom looks like, except less blurry.  This and this is what the dining room looks like.