Saturday, September 3, 2011

Thrifted Fabric and a Gem

Okay, so first off, some advice. When you are sorting through a jar of buttons, and are scooping them back into the jar, either pay attention or keep your cup of tea very far away, or else you'll wind up with button-flavoured tea.

Mmm tasty.

In other news, I went thrifting the other day! I love scoping out the fabric and crafty area at thrift stores. My local Value Village has this great section devoted to fabric pieces, and I often luck out with multiple metres worth of some interesting fabrics. For example, I once found 2.5 m of a lovely stretch denim for $6 and 2+ m of a navy fine wale corduroy for $4! Sweet!

I was drawn to this blue knit right away. Don't ask me what it is beyond a knit, because I haven't a clue. I like the solid colour, and the drape is lovely. Plus you can't go wrong with a 1 m section for $1.99! While this was meant to be another version of New Look 6807, I'm really liking the cowl-like neck on Mabe here, so maybe I'll have to try my hand at adapting this pattern to incorporate this detail. Will definitely be stalking Tanit-Isis and Steph's (from 3 Hours Past) cowl neck alteration posts (although maybe not so extreme of a cowl).

I thought that this was just a 2.5 m length of plain white rib knit (for $3.99, woo!), but I obviously didn't look close enough while at the store, because it's actually a long tube of plain white rib knit. It's about 3/4 m wide when laid flat, and I'm awfully confused. Loooong tube dress maybe? Oh well, there's enough of it to make something, even if I'm not sure of it's original purpose.

For some reason, I really liked this olive green knit, despite not normally being a huge fan of the colour. Then I found the olive green leather-like poly-something-or-other, and immediately pictured a knit t-shirt with the leather-like details at the shoulder and neckline. Haven't worked it out exactly, but it'll be fun to play with a pattern to figure out a design! Plus each piece was $1.99, so yay!

Besides knits, I also lucked out in finding about 4 m of this unique striped shirting (top) and 2.5 m of grey corduroy. The shirting is destined to be a...shirt of some sort (yeah yeah, so unique) or maybe a dress (we'll see), while the corduroy will be a pair of trousers, whenever I overcome this trouser fear I've developed somewhere along the way.

Actually, I just picked up 7 m of suiting for 99 cents/m at Mitchell's today for the sole purpose of trying my hand at trousers. It gets too cold here in the winter to pull off dresses and skirts, and ~6 months of winter means I really need to get over this fear and make some bloody trousers already. So that's what I'll be doing. Just as soon as I pick up my copy of Pants for Real People from Mom's place.

So I see some tops and maybe some trousers in my immediate future. Which of course means my next project will probably be a jacket, because that's how I roll.

Oh, and look what I also found at the thrift store:


10 comments:

  1. Awesome finds! I need a Value Village.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great find! I'm wearing gray cords right now...

    Shirts are ALWAYS awesome.

    ReplyDelete
  3. You're making me jealous! I have yet to find a thrift store with patterns or fabric! Waahhhhh

    ReplyDelete
  4. Great finds! I love the pinking shears especially. Also Fabricland's having their labour-day long weekend sale right now...

    Many knit fabrics are actually knitted in a tube. I love it when they sell them as tubes, because you can often save on fabric because you have two folded edges, not just one (layout: front on fold on one side, back on fold on the other side, sleeve in between), depending on how wide the tube is.

    Have fun! :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. I wear a lot of skirts and dresses in our -40c Montreal winter, either with fleece pants underneath (sexy sexy look!) or with long wooly socks (tights with the legs cut off and worn over another pair of wooly tights).

    (my security word is "sphyo". Hey Tanit-Isis: isn't that one of your kids? ;)

    ReplyDelete
  6. @Molly: Some of the best sewing areas I've found in thrift stores were in independent stores run by religious organizations. Especially ones where the emphasis isn't necessarily on clothes, but where they carry EVERYTHING!

    @Tanit-Isis: Huh, I didn't realize that about the knits. Thanks for the info, because I was really confused. lol! Also, I think I need to go shopping now...

    @Another Sewing Scientist: You are a brave and strong woman. Maybe I've written off skirts and dresses in the winter too quickly, though. I'll give it a try this year, because I really do like wearing them.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Sweet finds! I never thought of Value Village as a fabric source.

    Someone just mentioned Fabricland, I'll second that! I happened to be there bias tape and several metres of fabric later I was on my way home. They have a dollar off their bargain section prices (Pembina Hwy location) and some sweet $2/m finds.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Which Value Village is it? I used to work at the Pembina one, which is OK but not great for fabric, but has lots of good clothes! It's also decent for books. There's one in Edmonton I love, in the NE that always has lots of vintage patterns. Gonna have to be going there soon so I can pick up some maternity clothes!

    ReplyDelete
  9. KARLIE! I totally didn't realize that was you! :) I've been going to the VV on Regent Ave. It's got a decent fabric and notions section, but generally only a small selection of patterns.

    You know, I once worked at the VV on Pembina too, but that was (oh god) well over 10 years ago. Before I started university. How could it have been that long ago?! lol

    Are you blogging anymore? I stalked all of your listed blogs, but none seemed active. :(

    ReplyDelete
  10. Nice fabric finds! I'm so jealous....pretty much all we have around here are the standard Goodwills and one lonely Salvation Army store. And they don't have craft sections, so the closest thing I can get to finding fabric at them is the curtain/tablecloth section. Oh well, I'm trying to reduce my stash anyway. Nice pinking shears too.

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...