Oh, uh... Hi.

Still haven't sewn anything.  When I looked back at what I sewed last year, I didn't do anything until March, so this may be completely normal for me.  Looking forward to getting  more sunlight as the northern hemisphere slogs toward Spring.

"Not sewing right now" doesn't mean "not buying cloth right now," though...

Busy with the sewing *room*

Husband and I decided to swap hobby rooms, exchanging  his gaming books in the odd bedroom upstairs for my sewing and doll stuff in the odd bedroom in the basement.  So now I don't have to be a basement hermit when I sew, yay.

Here's the sewing desk, cheerful by the window, although it's a north-facing window, so there won't ever be a lot of direct sunlight in here, which, ah, is good in terms of keeping things from fading...?  I'm not sure if I'll fill that currently-blank wall with pictures--I certainly have enough that I could fill it, either with lots of small or with one huge, but I kinda like the idea of having one wall not punctured with nail holes.  (There aren't many of those in his house *grin*)

Looking to the left of the space above, you'll see the door to the strangely-large closet and the old display shelves now holding my cloth:

Ooh, that's messy.  Um.  Well, the stuff stacked in front is all destined for eBay, so it will go away. Eventually.  On the other side of this closet is the dresser that holds all my doll-specific cloth, now crowned with the doll photo stage:

...and next to that, just visible at the left edge of the photo, is the file cabinet with my patterns and interfacing and ironing accessories. (On the right are the pictures I mentioned that could fill the blank walls...)

And, lessee, what else...  Oh, yeah, zippers and notions and extra machine feet and serger cones and the like are in various decorative boxes on the bookcases by the sewing machines, along with a few sewing books

but the eye tends not to be drawn to those.

So, now, all I need is to get over this nasty cold and actually want to sew again.  Yay.

Bought some more cloth in Goodwill this morning. Oops?

A bit different than before--this is a stack of just over 200 4"² pieces of cotton.  Hello, so many doll dress bodices and pieced skirts...

Anyone interested in seeing the prints that particularly catch my eye (in good ways and in bad), or would you rather wait to see what I sew from them?

Of course, it's easier to buy cloth than to make anything...

Stopped in the Hermitage Goodwill again this morning, ended up buying the pieces below (and leaving lots of nice-but-not-me cloth behind.)

The top piece is a laminated Tula Pink print, 40" of it, but with a few inches cut off of the entirety of one edge; it's sill a solid ¾ yard in area.  I looked it up when I got home--the 99¢ I paid for it is  a...um...very good deal.

Next is a rare purchase for me--a solid that isn't black.  It's 37" selvedge to selvedge, so it may be vintage, and there's 1 yard 7" of it.  It is, I'm pretty sure, cotton pretending to be linen.  I may have felt some pity for it, since it was color of the week (so marked down from 99¢ to 49¢) AND it had remained unpurchased on Half-Off Saturday.  (Poor thing, I didn't even buy it on Saturday...oh...wait...)  I  think it coordinates fairly well with the laminated print, both in terms of color and texture contrasts.  Not sure what I'll do with them, but that doesn't (usually) stop a purchase...

Finally is a lightweight crêpe, 54" wide by 3 yards.  It involves at least some wool, I think, from the way it feels.  I won't know for sure unless I do a burn test (smells like burning hair) or start working with it (makes my arm itch inside.  Whee.)  It's a nice, slightly cool black.  Three yards of 60" possibly wool crêpe for for $2.99 is irresistible enough, right?  Then add that this tag was still on it:

...and I'd say we're looking at a piece of vintage yard goods as well...  Wikipedia says the last Stewart store closed in 1992, and I know tags like this tended to have been printed in huge quantities and used until they were gone, but I doubt the Stewart stores were still selling cloth very far into the 1980s, if even that long.  Plus, $2/yard for wool(ish) crêpe?  My guess is that it's been a while since it was that price... (I'll contain my gushing over the joy I get from vintage utilitarian graphic design like this.  Futura, ooh.)  I guess I'll attempt a hot-towel-clothes-dryer pre-shrink on this cloth, too.  Always a new adventure...

What do you think of these pieces of cloth?  Am I silly to keep buying completely random stuff at thrift stores?  Do you wish I'd JUST SEW SOMETHING ALREADY?  *grin*

First thrifted cloth of the New Year (either New Year)

Today is Half Off Saturday at the local Goodwill stores, and we hit two quickly this morning, finding a few pieces of cloth at the first:

At the top is some lightweight denim, about a yard and a half of 44", with scattered embroidered bugs'n'lizards'n'frogs.  The Child looked at it and said, "No, thank you," but he was pretty obviously feeling Lego Star Wars video game withdrawal at that point, so I don't know if he really actually doesn't want anything made from it or not.  That's OK, I have ideas for it that don't involve him, heh--looking at it now, I realize the space between the embroidered motifs is big enough that I can probably make A-line doll dresses with one critter each.

Next is some lightweight fine wale corduroy with a nice rose print, 2 yards of 44"--not sure what I can make from it, because 2 yards of a napped fabric has built-in limitations.  Has anyone else made anything from super light weight fine wale corduroy?  It seems too light for a skirt, but maybe too heavy for a shirt...or not?  (And, of course, it's accumulating cat hair already...)

The last piece is more or less a quarter yard, although cut along one edge (you can see the selvedge.)  It's cotton, and definitely going to be used for doll clothes.  There's some gold in the print, too!

I paid $3 for all of this.  Yeah, I may be kinda addicted to thrifting yardgoods...