The Best Places to Thrift Fabric

Since I've done a lot of fabric thrifting this year I thought I'd do a post about the best places to find quality vintage fabric. The number one place I recommend is a local thrift store you can visit. Nothing beats being able to hunt for fabric in person, and you can see, inspect, measure (and smell!) all the fabric before you purchase it. It also tends to be the cheapest source of fabric. I've done best at my local Goodwill shops; I think a lot of my luck has to do with the fact that I reside in the country, and there's a huge quilters' guild in my area.

Many vintage textile sellers have shops on Etsy. It's a good idea to first read the reviews on the shop before you buy from them, and even with all good reviews I recommend making a small purchase first. Most sellers on Etsy are great and won't try to swindle you out of money for bad fabric; I've built a list of sellers I trust to provide me with what they promise.

Online auctions are another decent resource for vintage fabric, which you can often buy in lots. eBay tends to be a bit on the pricier side, but they have the most detailed listings. Goodwill online has better prices, and there's less competition during the auction, but they only offer a few photos and the listing details are sparse and mainly offer what the weight of the lot is.

If there are quilt shows in your area you can sometimes find vintage fabric for sale; my local guild sold huge bins of scrap fabric donated by their members at their show for very low prices. You can also find quilt tops and other unfinished projects or project kits for sale. One year I had the good luck to win two raffle baskets at the county show, which had lots of fabric, trims and notions in them, so don't forget to buy raffle tickets. :)

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Other Stashes

Along with clearing out the spare bedroom and tidying my office and our guest bedroom, I decided to reorganize some of my stashes. This is all the yarn I have on hand, sorted by color. It looks like a lot, but lately I've been using up a minimum of half a bin every month, so this is approximately a year's supply. All of my solid color cotton perle thread. I go through a lot of this every year, too. I need a container in which I can fit all of it together, but I haven't found the right one yet. I won't show you all of my fabric -- I'm still reorganizing this stash -- but I went through everything and donated two bins of fabric I won't need to the local quilter's guild.

Goodwill Gamble #2 Arrives

My second Goodwill gamble arrived; this is one I paid ten bucks for last month. Just inside the lid was a big roll of plastic mesh that I think is for latchhook work. In the auction listing it looked like fabric to me, so that was unexpected. Someone at the seller's end was nice enough to put a note on this pinned fabric. I'll put on my gloves before I take it out to inspect it. The embroidered green fabric turned out to be 1-1/2 yards of sequinned and three-dimensional designer fabric. I'll guess this cost somewhere between $20.00 to $30.00 a yard, and it's in pristine condition. But here's a shot of everything in the lot, which is mostly crafty odds and ends with a small amount of cotton fabrics, a large amount of synethetic fabrics, and some other surprises. The original owner of these was probably a Catholic school teacher; these beads, crosses and medallions are the kind of rosary kits for kids to make at Sunday school or Bible camp (and s...

Love Means This

Invested in a couple of hand-dyed bundles from one of my favorite fabric artists. This one said "Make me into something for Valentine's Day." So I went for a quilted and embellished tote. I kept thinking about what love means to me as I worked on it. Here's the finished tote. Although I was tempted to embellish with beads and pins, I got sick and only felt well enough to do a little stitching every night. As I worked I thought about how often love seems disappointing to us, especially when it fails to live up to our expectations. But now that I've experienced love in many forms, I can say that it's made me a better person than I might have been without it. Love is a precious thing, and should be appreciated in all its forms. I am very grateful for the love of my guy, my child and my friends who have stuck with me all these years. That's you two, in case you're wondering. :) Also finally found something to do with a ve...

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