one step closer to awesome

So I went to Hancock Fabrics yesterday. I haven't bought any fabric for months and months and months, but I finally have a tiny bit of spending money, and also Hancock had this sale where (a) Kona cotton was $2 off and also (b) you got $10 off a $50+ purchase and $20 off a $100+ purchase. (Guess which discount I took advantage of?!)

Anyway! Huge sale, I bought a lot of Kona cotton for some quilts and/or purses, but more importantly, I bought a t-shirt pattern. Actually, a t-shirt + tank top pattern, and a yard of yellow cotton knit fabric. If this goes well, I am soon going to be able to make my own t-shirts & tank tops, which is awesome because (a) no more guilt over the conditions at whichever factory supplies Target and (b) I'll finally have shirts that aren't crew neck but also aren't v-necks that are so low cut as to be, um, distracting/inappropriate for teaching. For some reason, that second thing has thus far been almost impossible for me to find. I'm obviously quite nervous about sewing with knits, though, really, why? I have several different stretch stitches* on my machine, I bought needles made specifically for knits, the fabric cost maybe $10, what's the worst that could happen? If I screw up this first t-shirt, then I will probably not screw up the second one. So yeah, t-shirts!

Except I can't sew it yet because I have to read a book and two or three articles and also maybe start on a response paper. But if I get all that done, I will definitely have time for sewing either tonight or all day on Tuesday! Looking on the bright side, that is what 2010 is all about, dammit!

*Took me roughly 5 tries to spell that right, and it still looks weird to me.

sunday stash!

Look what I remembered to do! Pictured is vintage fabric, my xmas present from Nathan. The green & white fabric will probably end up as the backing fabric for a quilt; the red fabric will eventually be a dress, if I can find the right pattern. I don't know about the brown print. We'll see.

School starts tomorrow. I'm cautiously optimistic that this will be a good semester.

Sunday Stash!

Seriously, really know, I am going to do this Sunday Stash thing! Pictured here are recent finds at one of my favorite thrift stores. Roughly 20 yards of fabric, purchased for $40 or so. Excellent! If you click through, you can read notes on what I'm planning for each piece. You know you want to know.

sunday stash

Super late, super low-quality, but I wanted to participate, dammit.



I did so much sewing this weekend. Not as much as I wanted, but more than I expected. I have so much more to do before Craftacular, but I am kind of psyched that I've actually been working pretty steadily. Especially since it's dark by 5 now; I cannot wait for the winter solstice.

sunday stash, resumed

I don't know why I stopped doing Sunday Stash*, but it is time to start back up again. I haven't been great about posting regularly lately (the busyness, oh the business of my life), so maybe this way I will at least post on Sundays. So, today, apparel fabric. There was a point a few months ago when I wanted to sew up some shirts, but I didn't have any shirting fabric. It is very dangerous when I have even a semi-reasonable reason to buy more fabric. I ended up with enough fabric for at least 10 shirts, and at least that many shirt patterns, and the grand total of shirts I've actually sewn is maybe 3, none of which I'd want to wear outside the house. But! This is not a space for negativity; not anymore, at least. Sewing is a learning process, etc, etc, and here are three kinds of plaids that will one day be shirts. Or possibly a skirt, for that one on the right.

*Yes I do. Busyness/laziness/lameness.

sunday stash part dva

Apparently it has been a week since I last posted! Woops. Perhaps if I keep up this Sunday Stash thing, it will remind me to post on a more regular basis. Especially once school starts.

Anyway! Here is some fabric that I own!



Part of my ever-growing collection of vintage fabric, most [all, actually] of which I am far too scared to cut into. Someday, when I feel better about my quilting skillz, I'm going to make an amazing quilt entirely out of vintage fabric.

Also, like a jerk, I forgot to mention this last week, but here is the Flickr group for this Sunday Stash thing, and this is the lovely blog of the woman who started the Sunday Stash thing. There's usually a list of participants posted each week. Craft bloggers, yeah!

Also last night, as long as I'm on the topic of projects that may or may not ever be finished, I worked on paper piecing last night, for the first time in months.



I found all of my completed blocks (I'm at five) last week, as well as two half-done blocks. I basted some hexagons last night, and I started sewing them to the block today. I'm kind of hoping to finish the block today. I think with a hexagon border between the blocks [green hexagons from scraps is the plan] and a border around the entire thing, I could get away with 36 flower blocks. I'm going to hand quilt this thing whenever it's eventually together, so I don't really want to make it bigger than a lap quilt. Most of the time I'm okay with machine quilting--I am an impatient person--but it's nice to work on something that will be entirely made by hand.