Best Thrift Fabric Haul Ever

Sometimes I get inklings about things at Goodwill. Today I was back at ours looking for something I could upcycle when I saw this big bag marked Misc Fabric for $6.99. It was really heavy -- about twenty pounds -- and I saw some signs that it might be a quilter's stash. So I decided to roll the dice and buy it.

Once I got the bag home and started pulling out the fabric, my jaw hit the floor. It contained 26 yards of quilting cotton in 23 different prints, most custom-printed from Spoonflower, which charges $19.00 a yard for these.

Whoever this fabric originally belonged to ordered 19 different patterns, too, and I got all of them in the bag.

Also in the bag was 9 yards of Robert Allen Home medium weight cotton decorator fabric. This is generally used for upholstery, and the print is from 2004, so I suspect it's out of print. Robert Allen fabrics run from $10.00 to $35.00 a yard.

I'm not sure what this fabric is, as it's not marked, but the bag came with four yards of it. I'm going to guess it's drapery fabric.

Vintage fabric can't be priced at current retail, of course, but everything is in pristine condition. If I wanted to order the same fabrics new from Spoonflower right now it would cost me $381.00. As for the upholstery fabric, OOP designs regularly go for big bucks on specialty fabric web sites. Judging by the prices of other 2004-era Robert Allen fabrics, I would have to pay somewhere around $180.00 for nine yards.

Bottom line, I just got $561.00+ worth of fabric for seven bucks and change. :)

Old Loves & Such

My guy kindly bought me my favorite Chinese take out the other night, and my fortune cookie offered up an interesting story starter: This sounds sweet, right? Only the first thing I thought of was an old love coming back from the dead . . . . must be October. In other lovely news, my favorite hand-dyed thread artist, Lorraine from Colour Complements , is moving her business from Etsy to her own web site. Many of my favorite sellers on Etsy are leaving due to the whole "free shipping" coercion debacle, which has also soured me on the site. To show support I did a little shopping at Lorraine's web site and got in these: I love her threads and trims; you simply can't buy anything like them anywhere. Her work makes my specialty thread box look like a treasure chest: At night I'm spending just as hour working on quilting the scrap project runner, and I'm making slow progress: I'll keep quilting the runner while I try to decide on a design for t...

Fell Off the Wagon

I did cut up that plastic dollar tote to make into something stronger, but got caught up with work and set it aside. Then last night some hand-dyed silk and pretty threads called my name, and, well . . . Felt SO good to do some handwork, except my neck began hurting about an hour into it. I tried changing the way I sit and work, but it's pretty obvious that the doc is right.

Progress

My guy is back home safe, sound and exhausted. I think he just realized he's over seventy now. :) I didn't finish a sewing project while he was gone, but I did make some progress on the beach bag. I've tacked down all the fabric elements on top of the old backing fabric I quilted. Time to break out the embroidery thread box and have some fun.

Valerean

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