Hello! For me, a must-see section of any thrift store is the fabric area. As an occasional seamstress, frequent crafter and lover of vintage, I'm always thrilled when someone else's fabric stash can become mine, at thrift store prices!
I will show off a few selections from my fabric collection. My basement studio is very cold this time of year, so I grabbed just a fraction of what my thrift store jaunts have yielded.
Although the thrift stores often sell small pieces of fabrics, one can find pieces big enough for sewing larger projects:
I made a tote bag out of the blue and white floral print on top, and there's still a good-sized piece left. I made a skirt out of the red, white and blue striped material and haven't decided if I'll make a skirt or shorts out of the print on the bottom.
As you can see, I paid the equivalent of $1.00/yd for this blue and white print (second from the top in the previous photo). This is a heavy material, suitable for another tote bag, among other possibilities.
Not shown, because I used most of it already, is a navy blue fabric with white polka dots. I paid $1.00 for it - and there was enough to make shorts for both our daughter and myself!
For crafting, I favor small-scale prints for projects like ornaments and dolls:
Some of the fabrics above are older; may date from the 1970's. Anyone out there know when Meijer stopped selling fabrics? The piece in the foreground is from there.
I'll pick up larger prints if I like the designs, especially if the fabrics appears to be older:
The fabric on the left has an interesting large weave and I like the old-fashioned print. The Christmas design on the other piece also looks older, but I don't know if it actually is.
Besides pieces of fabrics large enough to be folded and displayed on shelves, thrift stores often sell bags of miscellaneous smaller pieces of fabrics. I'll look through these and buy them if a. there's enough fabric that I like and b. the pieces are large enough for me to use. I've seen bags with fabric pieces so small or narrow that I'd be hard-pressed to find a use for them.
An example of some smaller pieces:
This is a mix of newer and older fabrics. The red and white print in the foreground came from a grab bag of assorted red fabric pieces from a specialized thrift store in Ithaca, NY called Sew Green - it sells fabrics and a few other categories of supplies related to sewing and needle arts. The store isn't very big, but I enjoyed purchasing a couple of grab bags and a sewing pattern. (if you wish to learn more about Sew Green, go HERE.)
These smaller pieces of fabrics are great for many crafting projects. My current project, Comfort Dolls (mentioned a few posts back), is a perfect example since the dolls can be no bigger than 6" high. And since I'm using three different fabrics per doll, I don't need much of each piece.
One of my all-time favorite thrift store fabric finds was first mentioned HERE. Here's what some of the fabrics look like:
Besides the sheer quantity of fabric pieces - hundreds - a good number of them are older fabrics and it was fun to see the variety of prints. I couldn't resist the likes of this, for example:
Nor these:
Thus far I've used some of the fabrics to edge a pair of white pillowcases and have made yo-yo's and a couple of other projects.
As I said at the beginning of this post, this is only a fraction of what I have collected from thrift stores. I should also add that what I've shown reflects my tastes in fabrics and what projects I have in mind. There are plenty of newer fabrics to be had, as well as occasional bolts of heavier decorator fabrics.
As with any other category of thrift store wares, you'll never know what you'll find - but if you like to sew, do crafts, or just collect a variety of colorful older fabrics, thrift stores are worth a visit!
Hello! Earlier in the week, our daughter informed me that the theme days for her high school's upcoming Spirit Week had been announced, and three decades were included: 50's, 70's hippie and 80's. So it was off to the thrift store yesterday to see what we could find.
We headed to the Salvation Army thrift store, because there's a special tag color sale on Saturdays: the tag color of the week is further discounted to 69c/item on that day. We already knew we were going to alter a sweatshirt for the 80's look (a la the signature style of Jennifer Beal's Flashdance character), so of course I wanted to spend as little money as possible for that garment.
And yes, we did find a 69c sweatshirt. Also found a 69c pair of jeans for the hippie look. The jeans aren't of a hippie-ish style, but our daughter said she'd wear them again. I suggested that she find a peace sign from Google images to print out, which I in turn will cut out of felt to sew onto the jeans. She can remove it after that Spirit Week day is over. She also bought a cute top in a vaguely 70's print to wear, and will wear a pair of socks that I'd tie-dyed a few years back. The top was not part of the 69c sale, but our daughter said she'll wear it again, so the $2.99 price was fine with me.
The kids at her school had talked about poodle skirts and leather jackets for the 50's look, but neither turned up at the Salvation Army thrift store, so we headed over to the nearby Goodwill store. I spotted a black fake leather jacket, but it was $7.99, so forget that.
Nevertheless, in general a thrift store remains a good place to head if your kid comes home from school in need of some sort of costume.
No two winters are ever alike, of course, but thus far the beginning of Winter 2012-2013 is a lot like the beginning of last winter: milder weather than usual and very little snow to speak of. We've had a trace of snow this month, and the grand total for the season stands at 2.1" Yesterday and today it was in the 40's - and tomorrow and Saturday the paper shows a high of 53 for both days. That's 20 degrees above the normal high!
It turns colder on Sunday, and I'm sure we'll eventually get snowfalls worth shoveling. So I took advantage of the mild temps today to walk on the boardwalk along Lake Macatawa (for readers who live elsewhere, that lake is an inlet of Lake Michigan).
I wasn't the only one out and about enjoying the nice weather:
Mallards and a white duck cruising around, always on the lookout for treats. You can see the lake in the background.
Houses across the lake. With the lack of snow and the warmer-than-normal temps, it looked and felt more like March 10th than January 10th!
Back to my side of the lake, where the Heinz plant resides (note the pickle-shaped sign on the side of the building). When the wind is blowing right, we can smell garlic and dill from the pickle processing. Always smells good!
I typically walk on the boardwalk from one end to the other, then double back on it to return home. So on my return trip I encountered some of the same ducks:
They had come up quite close to me, clearly hoping to be fed, but I had nothing for them. So they gave up and took their leave of me - disappointed, no doubt, but I'd like to think that they were enjoying the nice weather as much as I was!
This past fall, I read of the Comfort Doll Project but knew that Christmas crafting would keep me too busy to work on this until after the holidays were over.
And since that is now the case, there's no time like the present for me to get started on this endeavor. The project specs indicate that each doll is to be no taller than 6". That eliminated several doll patterns right there, but on the other hand, a doll that small should be simple to make, right?
Not quite, at least not for an inexperienced dollmaker like me. There were a couple of fails - either the doll body came out too misshapen, or the doll dress took too long to make (due to hand-hemming). I knew I had to use a simple pattern or else I'd run out of steam really fast.
So I turned to a 1970's era Christmas craft magazine I'd picked up at a thrift store last year. I'd already used one of its patchwork Christmas ornament patterns to make bird-shaped ornaments for nieces and nephews. So I scaled up one of the other patchwork shapes, a girl, to make a doll of about 4 3/4" in height:
Super simple to do, but I think it still turned out cute. Sure, there's a bit of sewing of the patchwork, but since the pattern pieces aren't big, this is a good way to use up fabric scraps.
I added a bit of trim, sewed on beads for eyes and embroidered a mouth. A vintage fabric yo-yo with a pom-pom glued on top made for a cute hat. I forgot to do so, but I think I'll add a fabric or glued heart to the front. I think that will be a nice touch!
If you'd like to participate in the Comfort Doll project, check out the website HERE.
Hello! For the past five years, our town has hosted a collegiate ice sculpting competition.
Teams from colleges both in-state and out of state take part in this fun-to-watch event.
The competition kicked off Friday evening with the creation of compulsory buffet-style sculptures, and yesterday there was a four-hour block of time for the freestyle portion of the contest.
Downtown was jammed with spectators yesterday, but I managed to get some decent shots. The first several are of sculptures from the compulsory competition:
Very sweet - would have been nice for next month.
Let's eat at one of the popular downtown restaurants.
Elegant swan.
A calla lily, perhaps? Look at that detailed veining of the leaves.
The remaining shots are of the college students hard at work on their ice sculptures during the freestyle competition. As you'll see, the sound of power tools filled the air as these contestants labored over their works of art.
I had intended to return downtown today to take some photos of the finished sculptures, but it rained last night, which I assumed caused some deterioration of these sculptures. My husband walked through downtown this afternoon and confirmed this. It seems a shame that this happened after such intense work by the students, but it was fun to see the works in progress anyway!
The summary of the competition and the winners can be found HERE.
Hello! Sometime in 2010 I found this at the local Goodwill store:
I think I paid a dollar for it. This book had been published in 1962, although from what I read on eBay, a facsimile edition was released much more recently. There are many copies of the 1962 edition currently on eBay,
so this is not a particularly rare or valuable book.
Nevertheless, it was great fun to use throughout the year! The format is the same for each month: a short passage relating the history of the month's name, followed by some tips the folks behind Betty Crocker deemed applicable for the month. Two varieties of produce are featured each month, and recipes highlighting each month's picks are interspersed throughout the month. Cute illustrations brighten up the pages too.
Lastly, there's blank daily sections for writing short entries. I used these to make note of new recipes I'd tried, what went into the crockpot that day, what I ordered at the restaurant we discovered while on vacation, and so on.
This past fall, I found another copy of this book (again, the 1962 edition) at a used book sale, so once again I am enjoying it. I read anew that I ought to focus on oranges and broccoli this month, that I can make a orange pomander, and that "The beginning of the year is a good time to renew the closeness between parents and children...I have a dear friend who encourages the cold-weather custom of assembling her entire family for a pre-bedtime snack consisting of hot drinks (cocoa or mint tea) and coffee cake".
Sounds delightful, doesn't it? Also delightful was this illustration which led off the beginning of January:
Just as I did in 2011, I will enjoy using this book all year long!
Hello! And a Happy New Year to one and all! We spent New Year's Eve quietly at home, munching on my homemade sushi as we waited for the ball to drop at Times Square.
Earlier in the evening, I finished up a project I had started shortly before Christmas Day. At that time, I'd just completed the last gift wrapping and was inspired to do a little decluttering in my studio. I had pulled out a storage container of green art papers to use for making a gift tag, so I decided to go through this container to get rid of papers I didn't want anymore.
While doing so I came across a fistful of dark olive green card stock pieces, each measuring 3 3/4" long and 1 1/4" wide. There were close to 100 of these, all neatly cut with rounded corners. Not sure where they'd come from, but I suspect the creative reuse store Learning From Scratch in Grand Rapids. At first, I considered putting them in the pile of papers to go to Goodwill, but then came up with a use for them - hence, the title of this post, a "job jar" for 2013.
Using a combination of alphabet stamps, number stamps and my own lettering, I wrote out a series of tasks on these pieces. Didn't really start out with a lot of organization, but the tasks seemed to settle into four categories: Creativity ("practice drawing", "try a new recipe", etc), Physical/Mental/Spiritual ("try a new workout", "read an uplifting book", etc), Help Others ("make something for a friend", "write someone", etc) and Household Helps ("do a repair", "work on filing 20 minutes", etc).
For variety, some tasks are open-ended: for example, "do a repair" could mean mending a article of clothing, or it could mean getting out the wood glue to work on a loose chair leg.
Some tasks are more specific: "make a Halloween craft", for instance. Yes, I may pull this randomly, say in July, but that will just make doing such a craft more interesting than if I were to pull this on a day in October!
Out of the nearly 100 card stock pieces, I currently have 17 still blank, so I wrote out all the tasks on a separate piece of paper. That way, when I come up with 17 remaining tasks, I have a record of which ones I'd already thought of.
Here's what my "job jar" looks like:
As you can see, it's not actually a jar; it's a pottery vase, made by a friend several years ago. It measures about 3" tall and has a opening about 3 1/2" wide. My card stock pieces fit perfectly inside.
And here's the first "job" I pulled:
Thus, I got out the nature journal I'd purchased several years ago. To my chagrin, I noticed that the last time I'd written in it was 5-5-06! (to my credit, though, I hasten to add that I'd once kept a nature journal for an entire year).
This is one reason why I decided to do a "job jar" - not only will I write in my nature journal on the day I pull its tag as a task, but I might then be spurred on to write in it more often - or, at least more often than almost 6 1/2 years!
But the opposite holds true as well - if I pull a specific task like cleaning the refrigerator, and happen to pull that same task a couple of days later, then obviously I don't need to do that chore all over again. So I would just draw another tag.
And of course, some tasks will likely be tackled before I randomly draw its tag, like the one for catching up on that pesky filing, but I figure this system will overall nudge me into doing chores I tend to procrastinate about.
I think this will be fun to do, and if I follow through on the various tasks, I'll accomplish a lot this year as well!
