For the past few months, I’ve been very disciplined about not buying any new fabric and working solely from my stash. I’ve been very good at reusing fabric leftover from old projects, but also in finally using up ones I just never got around to using after purchase. While this may seem rather angelic of me, it all hid a dark secret – I went on a veritable fabric buying orgy while in America on holiday. As much as I love Walthamstow Market, nothing in the UK compares to the price, quantity, and breadth of fabric available in America.
To give you an idea, here’s most of it laid out:
I bought so much online I actually had to create a pdf to keep track of it all. I’m not kidding.
Some notables include chocolate brown and natural bamboos, a bunch of linen blends for James, some Gorgeous Things patterned jersey and silk, some emerald green silk, and some navy blue Pendleton wool given to me by my grandmother after she bought it on a trip to the factory in the 60s (languishing in her stash ever since). I tried to buy for Fall sewing, since I’m needing to dress up a bit more at work, and I was eligible for the free designer bundle from fabric.com which included a gorgeous off-white wool suiting, some pinstripes, and some nice linings, too. All of this fabric squeezed into THREE vacuum bags, split between our various pieces of luggage so as to not make any one bag too heavy (we bought had to buy extra suitcases. The American peso ruble dollar is just too cheap to resist right now!
But I didn’t stop with fabric (oh no!) – I also bought a bunch of patterns, and acquired even more vintage ones from my mom and grandmother:
But not pictured here are the Simplicities I picked up on sale (3775, 3780, 3631, 3694, 3867, and 3619). At 5 for $5, that is literally the price I pay for one Simplicity pattern at my favourite online pattern shop. I also had a bit of a mixup with my HotPatterns order, meaning my Monaco dress and top pattern isn’t shown here either (it should be shipping to my Aunt’s house soon, though I was hoping it’d arrive before I flew out!).
So I’ve got a full autumn of sewing ahead of me (and winter, and spring, and summer…), though right now I’ve got my hands full finishing our pirate costumes for the party on Sept 15, so I can’t even open my fabric bags until I’m done with those!