...i heart fabric...

Thrifting ~ Found at Estate Sale...

Mid Century couch & side table for $20! We are slowly changing our furniture out to 60's inspired and hopefully our house too, Hello Atomic Ranch!

Thrifting Vintage Richard Scarry...

Last weekend was very successful for Thrifting! Estate Sale on friday we found some really great vintage Richard Scarry books and more...

The Best Make It Book Ever, by Richard Scarry 1977 has some great kid projects and wonderful cards to cut out. Sadie and I (mostly I) did the Lowly Worm stuffed pattern in felt. I luckily had all the materials from past projects, so easy and so cute! Sadie LOVES it...

Patterns and instructions to make the Lowly Worm doll. Simply click on the images to open them, right click and save them to your computer to print out onto 8.5 x 11 paper. Have fun!

  
Here are the fronts and backs of some great Eeaster Cards to print out:

 

Update! Here is the Huckle hand puppet pattern from this book!

Inspiring work made from recycled clothing...

It is quite the trend now to make new clothing from recycling discarded clothes, but I've recently found some inspiring projects and artwork made from reusing old duds:

Reupholstered easy chair from denim jeans:

 

image: Design Sponge

Cuddly Bears from men's shirts:

image: fab.com

Forest gallery installation:

 

image: Neraldo de la Paz

Ooo, I feel a trip to the Goodwill Outlet comin' on...

Found at the Goodwill Outlet...

A fab collection of vintage baby clothes!

 

  
I went to the "Pound" as I like to call it (my sister calls it "The Bins"), it's the Goodwill Outlet where most things you pay for by the pound and you gotta dig. I got a bee in my bonnet to make up some baby duds out of recycled clothing and not wanting to pay a lot for my project so it was an excuse to go digging. This place is pretty gross and you really have to be in the mood for it. I'm not much of a digger, I usually let other people do the digging and I just pick. The random underpants that are floating around in the bins are enough to put me off. Plus the lengths of fabric are usually mixed in with used bedding, also not fun to shift around. 

There are some amusing reviews of this place on Yelp, everything from raves to personal vendetta. I do wonder about the people that seem to stay there all day and amass multiple bins of stuff, what are they going to do with all that! I limit myself to one bag, there are usually a bunch of old swag/shopping style bags and I just grab one of those and a full bag usually ends up costing around $20. I found a bunch of great t-shirts and men's shirts to refashion into some cute baby clothes. It all goes straight into the washing machine as soon as I get home and you really have to do a scrub with soap right up to to your elbows before you leave that place. Not for the faint of heart, hubby won't even touch anything there, if he even goes at all.

I'm looking forward to checking out the new one just opened in Everett! I have a feeling it won't have as much of the dark & creepy aspect that the SODO one has...we'll just have to see...

*Update - We visited the Everett Goodwill Outlet! Wow, what a difference! No smell at all, not even the usual Goodwill smell. Everything was very orderly. No crazy old guys sitting in the furniture and plenty of carts for everyone. Nice thing I found was that the bins were more separated, so there was around 6 bins of children's clothes on there own. Not just a crazy huge jumble of everything together. It made rummaging really easy and the fact that things just weren't smelly made digging a lot easier. Still didn't dig through the bedding though :P I got a giant bag for $17 with just heaps of great kids stuff. It's definitely worth the drive up. 

Estate Sale winner...

I got to an estate sale today, on a Sunday, which usually by then all the good stuff is gone, but on the plus side things are 1/2 price. It's been a while since I've been to an estate sale and found vintage fabric, but today I lucked out! I filled a giant bag, around 30 pieces, some 6 yards, some small pieces all for $15. Happy.

 

 

 

 

 

What tickles sometimes are the comments from other people shopping. They say, "I've never seen so much fabric," or "What would anyone do with so much fabric?" I laugh to myself as this is only the fabric that I am buying today :)

Factory Auction...

Last week out of curiosity I went to a clothing factory auction. It's sad as there is so few clothing manufacturers in Seattle as it is to have another factory closing. I was really interested to see what would be up for bidding and how much the industrial machines would go for. Here is the floor before bidding:

 

The 220w machines were going for around $50 and the 110w machines for $100. I couldn't resist, I ended up bidding and winning this Juki for $175: 

AND I won this amazing cylinder free arm Brother Machine! This is a machine that I have always wanted and got it for about a third the price of even a used machine. If you have ever bid and won at an auction, live, you will know how thrilling it is! I wanted to run and hug my machine when I won.

 

There were lots of machines I had never even heard of, it was fascinating. I would have loved to bid on the crochet chain stitch machine, but I was over my limit and hubby would have killed me. As it is we have no space for these two machines. They are living in the garage with his power tools at the moment, I go in and visit them, not sure when I will actually get to use them. I ended up getting two large (very sharp) fabric sheers and an industrial fan too. Fun and exciting day.

Can't resist...

buying vintage fabric. I have started going to estate sales again. Little Sadie in the carrier on my front, checking out all the goodies. I have found a few pieces of groovy vintage fabrics and snagged a bunch of vintage craft magazines, my favorite, I don't know when I will ever get a chance to read them, but I feel like I have saved them from an undetermined end. That is how I justify buying many, many vintage patterns as well, I'm saving them :)

  

 

 

This one I found on ebay, so very dangerous. I have been so good and haven't bought anything off ebay in ages. But, once you start, it's very hard to stop! I'm on it every day now like it's my job.

Daydreaming about London...

  Design Sponge has published a delicious list of not to miss shopping destinations in London, a place very close to my heart. The many comments left by visitors has some great suggestions too. I spent 7 years there and still don't feel like I saw everything I wanted to. Maybe someday I will take my daughter there.

Loads a Love...

in card form that is! Just arrived today, my 43 vintage valentine card lot that I won off ebay, yay! I'm going to re-mount these and package them with envelopes to sell in Frock Shop. I will post pictures of the finished products here soon!

Hee Hee Hee...

One thing I will quickly write about (and giggle secretly inside) is this fantastic 5 pound box full of vintage wrapping paper that I found at an estate sale this weekend. It was this great old Nordstrom box that just said $5 for the box. I was so excited when I opened it up, I literally snached it to my chest and ran to the cashier. I havn't even had a chance to go through all of it, but there are so many cute ones in there. Some will be made into cards, some sold as a whole sheet in my shop and some I'm going to keep for myself...

Also, have a look at the write up for the shop in the NW Source shopping site: http://www.nwsource.com/shopping/

My link for Frock Shop is right in the middle of the page, double Yay!