Patriotic Precuts and the Sewing Room Setup

An $8 thrift shop haul resulted in a bag of patriotic precuts.

Thank you mystery quilter!
The rest of the lot included a 2017 California Nature calendar, a Stephen King compilation of short stories, tin full of embroidery thread and small hoops, and fabric.

It took me longer than usual to set up the new sewing room because it is bitter cold right now and the downstairs, delightfully cool in the summer, is downright brrrr in the winter. I also had to figure out how to partially assemble and adjust the new sewing table.

Another thing keeping me from my somewhat frantic quilting pace is the Mr. is very ill and has been for a number of months.  Rather than sequester myself in my sewing room, I have been keeping him company while we binge watch Netflix.

Showcasing Sally Stand-In who is wearing her permanent "housedress." This garment is best for modeling, not wearing, as it is made from a heavy, scratchy knit. What I love best is the fabric pattern and the gaudy rhinestone buttons. This beauty was a $1 thrift shop find last year. The story behind it and other garments that came into the thrift shop is a woman collected vintage, highly unusual clothing but most of it had not been properly stored and had water damage. I can only image what the other outfits looked like.

Pattern of the Day features, yes, you guessed it, a housedress from  1960.

Back to patriotism for this post's conclusion. I never knew there were flaglaws until I took an art class where the teacher placed the student signup sheet and a folded flag on the floor in the way. After the fact, I realized I should have picked up the flag and placed it reverently on a shelf.

I had posted the YouTube video of the FedEx man rescuing a flag from a crowd intent on burning it, but it keeps getting pulled from that website.

Best of the bunch and first fine art find of the year

Best thrifted find of the weekend - 18 nearly complete pinwheel quilt blocks with the sample to finish off the lot.

Thank you mystery quilter!

I can combine last year's finds of bow-tie cut pieces and sunflower fabric for a fun summer blue and yellow quilt. It will be a super quick put together.

Thrifting averaged $15 a bag for the two shops I visited, picking up numerous books, half early 1960s-1970s publications.

Best of all, there were clothes, much needed clothes to replace the larger sizes I had sent to the Great Thrift Shop Beyond.  Alfred Dunner sweats, Coldwater Creek black pants, Fabrizio Gianni brown stretch jeans.

I also indulged in fabric and some lotions, 2 bags of Barbie clothes, half of the homemade were unfinished and there was a Ken as the model for the patterns. Thinking he and his half-finished clothes will eventually end up on Ebay.

Best of the bunch from the Barbie bags were these three pieces of doll clothing and two doll quilts, one pictured below.

Sally Stand-in is modeling two more of my clothing finds, a lavender button up long sleeved Foxcroft shirt and a lined Eddie Bauer brown wool maxi skirt (new with replacement button still attached).  The cute detail on this is the placement of a zippered pocket around knee high.

Pattern of the day features maxis from 1972.

Sunday's thrift shop find, a delightful 10-year old giclee print ($5.50), not quite vintage, has joined the artwork in my collection room.

This print had an easy fix of replacing the hanging wire and taping up the torn paper on the backing. A certain hospice shop open on Sundays has been a constant source for me of fine art finds and I love them for that!

The lengths I go to for vintage fabric

Since I purchase retail fabric for most of my quilt backings, I've come to know some of the current ones. They are wonderfully color coded and perfectly matched and you consumer quilter pay a premium for that.

Being the thrift shop commando that I am, one thrift shop that I frequent supports the ASPCA (American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals).  There was a packet of fabric remnants priced at $8 but I wasn't willing to pay that since it looked to be mainly uglies. Half off day rolled around and I decided to snag the collection. The hidden fabric gems were worth the seam-ripping effort. I have come to cherish these vintage fabrics as unique and special. Funny enough, I don't mind ripping the seams of fabric I want to use in another creation. I find it calming but when I have to rip seams of something I have to redo, I engage in Angry Seam Ripping or ASR.

Here is the thrifted fabric, along with a hinged jar purchased for $6.  As an aside, I use hinged jars to store pasta and dried beans. I purchase the new jar seals at a local kitchen specialty store.

I never did highlight the free motion quilting I completed for the Trailer Quilt Log Cabin Style. While I made more than a few mistakes in the log cabin squares - I used too much blue, the squares didn't end up how I intended them to be (rookie error), it was my first real foray into free motion quilting, I now appreciate the effort I put into quilting each square.

I did not stitch in the ditch so it truly was free motion quilting.

Back to my original idea, I enjoy "hunting" for my supplies and that fits right in with reusing, reducing and recycling.

How do you feel about vintage fabric? Do you prefer to work with only modern?

I destashed the uglies

A sneak peek of the Vintage Fabric Quilt top and backing (nearly finished). I made the mistake in another creation of cutting the kitty cat panel into small borders when it really presents best in one piece. I will put a teal polka dot border on the top of the backing.

As promised, I destashed my uglies aka my ugly fabric. I filled an entire paper grocery bag full of fabric.

My quilt journey started with amassing over 40 xxxxl Hawaiian print shirts and processing them into workable material for piecing. I made a number of quilts from the fabric but have since lost the inspiration to continue along that vein. I did keep a few of the pretties, just in case.

We had a heck of a storm on Sunday here in Northern California. I took off work the next day to avoid flooded streets and roads. Part of errand running included thrift shopping plus a $10 credit on points earned so my day's haul was $11 and change.

There is an Ugly Christmas sweater with amazing detailed beading (to go up for sale in a few months) a cornflower button up shirt, a fun t-shirt and a doll ($1.25 on sale) for steampunkage. There is quilt publication of Favorite Applique Quilts but best of all, Scrapcrafts from A to Z.  I plan on doing another sewing-themed (loosely based) group of posts for the A to Z Challenge in April. I'll look over this book to see if it will work for my purposes. The gray floral fabric turned out to be a circular table cover. The small orange labeled packets contained pieces of costume jewelry. 

We've been staying warm and dry - now I need to concentrate on setting up that new sewing room!

Linking up with Leanne at shecanquilt.ca for:

January is one of my favorite thrifting times of year

Leading off with Sally Stand-in modeling my thrifted outfit I wore for the holidays, a lovely knit and lace sweater with an oversized scarf.

January is one of my favorite thrifting times of year. Brand new and next to new articles of clothing are donated because the donor has either received them as gifts and doesn't want them or has received a newer zoomier piece of clothing and is donating the older one. Both of the cashmere *sings the word* sweaters I found are in excellent condition. Anyhoo for $12 I got the lot of two cashmere sweaters, one sleeveless knit, a scarf, fabric and steampunk necklace (not pictured)

Quilting update on Vintage Fabric Quilt:

Paisley borders have been added and I have enough to use for the binding. Heading to a major retailer tomorrow to look at some fabric. I am still considering a 1" orange border and using the blue paisley.

Posting a Pattern of the Day, a 1969 McCall's.

Bev's sewing basket

Thrifting has resumed in full swing and this week's finds included a NWT (new with tag) Charter Club sleeveless knit top in shocking pink ($9) and sewing basket with all of its contents ($5). The reason I know it is Bev's because there was a thank you card from what appeared to be her daughter in law. This is the first sewing basket (of the 3 thrifted that I've bought) that contained such interesting ephemera mainly from the early 1970s.

Sewing needle packets (front and back)


Bev's drawings

Random Snoopy napkin

The graphic on the button card must be early 1950s?

Menu of the care facility Bev stayed at (lovely graphics).

I used to buy 35mm slides secondhand but in one batch I bought it was heartbreaking - you could piece together a story from the photographs. There was a father and his two children and in the images the mother was no where to be found. In the photos, they all seemed unhappy perhaps that is why the slides ended up in a thrift shop. 

I will take one of my sewing baskets and set it up for my daughter. I have thread, buttons and sewing paraphernalia now in excess.

Here it is January 6 and I am already breaking one of my resolutions - not to buy fabric. Instead, I am going to go through my fabric stash and de-ugly it again. Yes, that's right, get rid of the fabric uglies, mainly processed from the Hawaiian shirt hoarder so I can buy newer, zoomier prints (thrifted, of course)!

So here is to Sewing Bev and her basket from the Great Thrift Shop Beyond. 

Moving it Forward Monday

I had the luxury of being on vacation for the past week and was able to discover new blogs and bloggers, catch up on an unfinished project and dream of new ones. In my internet travels, I found emsscrapbag for Moving it Forward Monday as a quilter's blog linkup.  

I began the new year off and running by assembling a quilt top using thrifted fabric of vintage fabric precuts, batik precuts and a smidgeon of Hawaiian shirt hoarder fabric.

I was finally able to buy a few things on my Amazon wish list and one of those was the book Mixing Quilt Elements: A Modern Look at Color, Style & Design by Kathy Doughty, so I have to admit her book provided some inspiration for the flimsy pictured above.

Vintage fabric quilt needs borders to make it bed-sized so here are the fabrics I am auditioning. I hit the wall on utilizing any more of my stash to complete this quilt. All of the border fabrics were purchased retail. I can't help but get sticker shock when I buy retail fabric - that small stack set me back $50.

I chose to piece a quilt top rather than set up my sewing room. I will be quilting this piece on the new machine though.

It has been cold for us in these Northern California climes so we were sorely in need of more blankets. I ended up buying a queen sized whole cloth cotton blanket with cotton batting at a major retailer for $80. I calculated buying the fabric and the time it would take for me to quilt it and it was worth the cost. But no more buying retail blankets after that when I can make them myself!

Pattern of the Day is a 1967 McCall's, a misses robe to keep you comfy warm.

Post updated to also linkup with Kelly at myquiltinfatuation
for: