Large Bag and Big Bag

I forgot to post about it here, but, a few days after my birthday, I was able to go a'thriftin' on my own while Husband watched the kiddo, which meant I could take as much time as I wanted to look around without a certain little someone exceeding his boredom threshold.

I also wanted to stop in JoAnn, too, to see if I could find any cloth to make a pencil bag for the kiddo (at school this year, they're supposed to use large zip bags instead of pencil boxes, and, hey, I can make a zip bag...)  He'd wanted a print with as much BB-8 as possible, which I kind of found, and I also picked up a Halloween eyeball print that I thought would work well for doll clothes.  When I got back and asked him if he wanted to combine any other prints with the Star Wars print, he said, yes, he wanted the eyeball print.  Well...OK, then!

I picked out the zipper (because I still have a lot of these yellow zippers) and lining (because I wanted to make sure it would be bright enough inside that things wouldn't get lost in shadowy corners.)  He's happy.

But!  The bigger find was in the Goodwill--which is usually a relatively disappointing Goodwill, and seemed like it was going to be just as disappointing this time, yielding only two dolls (granted, one was a Marin Chiclana guy, something I'd wanted for a while), one piece of cloth, and a bag full of perler beads and small pegboards...and holes.  It was while I was chasing down escaped perler beads that I noticed the big bedding bag that was full of sewing patterns and marked $7.99.  It was held closed with a cable tie through the two zipper pulls, so there was no possibility of surreptitiously opening it up and digging around to see if anything was worthwhile, and, hooboy, was what was visible on the outside...not worth it.  So much late '80s/early '90s blandness.  Still, if there were eight patterns I liked, I could consider it to be breaking even...and...this was supposed to be silly birthday shopping,  stop trying to be reasonable, Self.  So I picked up the last perler beads I could see and dragged the...um...delightfully heavy bag of patterns to the register.  The nice customer ahead of me put it on the counter for me, expressing (possibly) a bit of appreciation for the find.

After I got home and put everything else away, I parked myself on the living room floor, snipped the cable tie, and dove in.

So.  Yeah.  When you get a grab bag that ends up having 120+ patterns, you're probably going to find plenty that look worthwhile, no matter how many 1980s beginner patterns or early 1990s fancy jumpsuits patterns (for girls and women) or curtains patterns or indie quilted vest patterns there are.  There were even a few men's patterns in Husband's size range, and kids/boys patterns for the kiddo (whose foot is visible here, yes), and a lot of patterns in sizes suitable for some of my friends.

I'm happy with what I got from this, although I'm now out of room in the file drawers where I keep my patterns, and I'm unsure of what to do with the giant stack of patterns left that I have no use for.  Still, definitely worth the $8.

I have a 1982 Laura Ashley shirt pattern picked out (and ironed flat) for my next project--hope to get back here soon with that!

Making a note

Just a quick post to record the fact that today was when I finished this

which I will post about, in greater detail, at a later date, but not now, because it's a gift...

Sing the praises of pants

Or, at least, of Kwik Sew 2544, revisited in denim with lime green top stitching and vague memories of what needed to be corrected from the last time I made this pattern.

Kid's Choice

So I've been venturing into the thrift store every few weeks over the summer, acknowledging that the kiddo is not as enthused about the activity as I am.  I make the deal: we'll only look at toys and cloth.  Toys he's fine with, but, cloth?  Enh.

So I was surprised when he fell in love with a yard of fluffy polar fleece, a camo print in colors I think of as "spring thaw."  I said I'd make a hoodie for him, thinking I had a separating zipper of appropriate length, which...no.  I'd intended to use Burda 9672 again, anyway, so I asked him if he'd rather have a jacket or a pullover, and he chose the pullover, also choosing a yellow zipper.

It went together pretty fast, except for the part that involved unpicking stitches in fluffy cloth...

Thankful in July

I'd been planning for a while to make a patchwork blanket (still not ready to get into actual quilting) gift to thank some relatives for their help with a family situation over the last year and a half.  I figured we'd see them mid July, which gave me plenty of time to work on the gift, after taking some time to make a stack of doll clothes for gifts and trades.  Then I discovered we'd be seeing these relatives right after Independence Day.

Well.