Rows and rows of beautiful selections, a fabulous world of opportunity! I loved the fabric store. Buttons, 7” zippers in every color, the perfect shade of thread for your needs, interfacing for the collars, and of course, a new pattern!
Back in the day, my mom would take us to the city clothes shopping, and by that I mean, the fabric store. It became the highlight because it meant a new wardrobe! We would spend hours in there, my sister and I sharing a pattern and choosing our fabrics with parental approval. The best patterns were the ones with at least five different garments you could manufacture from the tissue paper pieces. Often my sibling and I sported the same style in different colors.
My mother was a masterful seamstress and knew how to glean every inch of useable fabric from the yardage. I don’t know if we ever bought the full amount required on the pattern because we knew there was always waste. Or better yet, we knew how to properly place the pieces to utilize the fabric. It’s why we’re all good at puzzles in my family, I swear!
Now, as Earl Pickles in our comic knows, the fabric store is sometimes best avoided. I can imagine him having to sit at the pattern counter with his wife Opal for hours, waiting for her to peruse and choose. It’s akin to when I would fall for the line, “I’ll only be a minute,” when my husband went to Best Buy. I spent enough time in those recliners watching television waiting for my spouse to make his careful selections with all of the other toys in there for distraction. Earl was just hoping the store was closed and he wouldn’t have to go in. He was never choosing to go there of his own accord, for heaven’s sake!
So there you go, America. That is the proper explanation of “Pickles” for those of you contemplating what it meant. Now you have it down pat.