Sunday, April 20, 2008

Fabric is My Heroin

I could shop for fabric 24 hours a day, just about every day. It is definitely an addiction. In fact, I think I nearly OD'd on fabric this week. My mom was just in town visiting and she's into quilting, so we hit up a bunch of fabric shops as well as a few awesome estate sales and rounded up quite a pile of lovely material.

A big pile of gorgeous dupioni silk! The brown, yellow and lilac purple came from a discount upholstery shop and were only $3 a yard!!! I bought whatever they had left. The bluish-purple iridescent piece on the far right my mom bought for me when she was in NYC recently.


This whole entire group only cost $1! I got all five of these pieces at the same estate sale. From left to right: 1. A LARGE piece of white faux fur. Not sure what I'll do with it, but for 20¢ I couldn't just leave it there! 2. A piece of nice red cotton, I'll use it to line some tote bags I'm working on. 3. An absolutely GORGEOUS piece of very old silk satin. It's pale steel blue in color and feels amazing! Still has a tiny tag on it with writing in Japanese, I'm guessing from when it was purchased originally. 4. An awesome black and white poly knit. Something fun waiting to happen, I know it! 5. Several yards of bright pink corduroy. Good for bags and an obvious addition to my massive corduroy collection.


All the above pieces came from a local discount fabric shop. They sell a lot of factory ends and older pieces. From left: 1. Two yards of a nice fuschia corduroy. 2. A funky paisley print for tote bags. 3. A fantastic floral print which I'll also use for making bags. 4. Really fun blue and brown floral, I've already started making a tote out of this and it should be ready and listed in my Etsy shop tomorrow! 5. Super cute ladybug print cotton. I'm going to make my boyfriend some boxers out of this. I LOVE getting cute prints and making him shorts.


Some really nice fabrics I can't wait to make some clothes with! These all came from the same discount place as the pieces above. From left: 1 & 2 - I don't usually use polyester, but these prints were so gorgeous, the price was right and the fabric so soft! I'm going to make up a basic halter pattern and then bust out a bunch of cute dresses to be for sale just in time for summer! 3. Beautiful maroon herringbone wool blend. If you look really really close the threads are 4 or 5 different colors of purple and red. It's awesome! I'm going to make some pants with this, someday... 4. Nice black and white wool tweed with little rainbow specs. It'll make a great coat. 5. I thought this one was wool when I bought it, and it was in the wool section at the store, but when I got it home and did a burn test it melted and dripped all over my finger. It STILL hurts. I'm guessing it's acrylic. It's still really nice looking and I'm thinking of using it for a cute matching skirt and jacket combo.


This last piece is my favorite one I got all week! It's a to-die-for silk chiffon, mostly black an printed as a repeat panel with the NYC skyline, including the WTC, so this one is obviously at least a few years old. I got everything that was left, which was about 8 yards, and it was only $2.99 a yard. CRAZY deal! They definitely didn't know what they had, which is usually the advantage at this place. Most of the people working there couldn't tell poly from silk with their eyes open. Anyway, I'm going to use it to make a floor length gown with the design as a border along the bottom and the rest of the dress in black, so you can only really see the image if you look close or if the dress is spread out.

I got one more piece of silk this week, a slate blue dupioni, and I haven't actually seen it since I got it home. I'm wondering if my mom accidentally took it home with her. No time to wonder! I need to dive right in and start turning all this fabric into its intended forms. Partially to sell some of the things I create and make back all the money we spent, but mostly so I can make room for more fabric!!! I'm off to the sewing machine!


8 comments:

SewCrazyDogLady said...

Wow! I LOVE that skyline fabric! Who knew that would be something that would disappear.

I'm not allowed in the fabric store until I use up my stash.

Heather Buchanan said...

Amazing! What fabulous finds! My favourite, though I try to stay away from unnatural fibres too, is the polyester at the far left of that second last photo. It's magical! So so beautiful. I hope these amazing fabrics stir an unstoppable craze of creation in you!

Robotosaurus! said...

I would LOVE to go buy more fabric, but I need to use what I've got now. Hrmph. What do you make with silk? I have the hardest time using it since it wrinkles so easily and it's hard to hand-sew.

Everything you bought is beautiful!

Unknown said...

i love all the colors you picked out! you have a great eye for color :) I cant wait to see what you make with them

Katie L. said...

Very exciting!!! i can't believe the deals you got! If I could sew, I think I would be addicted to buying fabric too :)

Distressing Delilah a.k.a. jenn said...

Awesome NYC fabric. I guess you did o/d on fabric this week!

industrialpoppy said...

Unreal fabric finds!

cloudhopping said...

I too have a fabric addiction! Love the printed ones you found.