The 'red librarian' started out as a joke between Jacob and me. There's such a stereotype surrounding librarians: buttoned-up, prim, proper women. You know the type: butter wouldn't melt in their pursed mouths, nor would a sheet of paper wedge between their knees. But there's also the stereotype of the "lipstick librarian" -- the flamboyant, reactionary woman who rebels from that stereotype and creates her own look.

We've joked that I have three sides: the white librarian, the red librarian, and the red librarian masquerading as a white librarian. The first one is proper, the second one decadent, and the third one pretending to be proper so as to get away with her true nature.

Fun, comfortable, work-appropriate dress?  White librarian.
Add in a pair of outrageous Fluevog heels and a French scarf? Red librarian.
Stockings, garters, and killer underwear? Red librarian masquerading as a white librarian.

That's the first line. Now let's draw a second line, starting from off in the distance, which will eventually intersect: Jacob's gift of fabric. He's been sending me fabric for well over six months now, and I've been carefully stashing it away, intending to make quilts just out of that fabric. He was emphatic from the start: "Make something for yourself for a change."

Most of the fabrics were innocent. Themes I liked -- stars, batiks, certain color sets. But some came with notes that I couldn't share widely:

• "You like funny, splashy-colored underwear like this."
• "Doesn't this look like a certain toy?"
• "See? I'm giving you flowers."

We'd joked that I should make a single quilt, with a white-librarian side and a red-librarian side. I considered it for a while, and then looked at my fabric stash. Jacob had given me a lot of fabric, and I had two sets of backing fabric, both bought in Hawaii, that I'd never put into quilts because I just couldn't bear to give the fabric away.

Point of intersection: I thought, why not make two quilts?

So, to entertain me while I'm working on Adam's complex quilt, I'm making this one. It's simple squares and rectangles. The fun is in the fabric.

Red Librarian fabrics
by domesticat.
['Red librarian fabrics']

Clockwise from top left: bras, sex toys, bribing me with flowers, funky underwear, and endpapers for books.

Red Librarian fabrics, 2
by domesticat.
['Red librarian fabrics, 2']

Clockwise from top left: care to tie someone up?, some women are spicier than others, my penchant for red shoes, an old pair of Jacob's shorts, an old pair of my shorts, little red love letters, and a blatant 'screw' metaphor.

Then there's the third photo...

Red Librarian fabrics, 3
by domesticat.
['Red librarian fabrics, 3']

Clockwise: the best in-joke from the pirate fabric in Brian and Suzan's quilt ("Serendipity"), penguins!, and ... yes, those are cartoon drawings of sexual positions. When I was hunting for amusing, racy, or titillating fabric to use in this quilt, I ran across the etsy seller 'obviousart,' an illustrator. She'd done a series of illustrations for a condom company, and retained the rights to her drawings. End result? A fabric called "It's Only Sex."

Laughed. My. Ass. Off.

Ordered it, too.

So the red librarian shall have a quilt that could serve as both warmth and ... inspiration. It seems strangely fitting.