Archive for the 'thrifting' Category

Vintage fabric finds – March

Published on 12/04/2013 by Mary in fabric, thrifting, Upcycled and Vintage. 8 Comments

Here’s a selection of the vintage sheets I’ve acquired this month:

I say ‘acquired’ because a some of them were gifted to me by lovely ladies at the Sewing Directory meet up in Exeter. The lovely Helen from Indianna Dreams gave me the gorgeous yellow floral print at the top right, some of the others came from a generous blog reader and local lady Sue – thanks very much ladies.

I have found a few pieces in the charity shop recently and they are making their way into vintage sheet charm packs in my etsy shop (in which I had my best ever month for sales in March – woo hoo!).

Orbit quilt finish

Published on 25/03/2013 by Mary in charity shopping, Patchwork, Quilts, thrifting, Upcycled and Vintage. 14 Comments

On a freezing cold day I’m able to share with you a quilt finish.

This is the original fabric pull, all vintage sheets from my stash (some recently obtained from the vintage sheet FQ swap):

It changed a little and I went with the bottom floral print for the background fabric rather than the plain blue solid.

There was a fair amount of cutting to be done but thanks to Lindsey’s clever pattern which includes a quilt by number chart it was easy to put together. The pattern is currently free to download and after 1st April it will be available to buy from Lindsey.

Last night I finally finished sewing the binding on:

Finishing the binding meant that all that was needed were photographs, so despite the temperature I took a walk to the park at the end of our road and pegged the quilt to the fencing of the tennis court. I was concerned about the strength of the wind and the ability to get a decent shot but it was obviously blowing in the right direction, I think it would have stayed up without pegs!

Backed with a vintage sheet:

And the quilting? I’ve never free motion quilted a quilt so I thought ‘why not start on this one?’ For the centre of each Orbit I used pebbles:

For the outer square I did a loopy something or other:

And then for the Orbit I used parallel lines following the outer edge of the Orbit:

I’m pleased with it as a first attempt at free motion quilting (obviously the straight lines are not FMQ!), I can see how with practice it should improve.

Thanks very much to Lindsey for a great pattern (I can see myself using it again) and for hosting the QAL.

Quilt Stats:

Size: 60″ x 60″
Fabric: Vintage sheets
Backing fabric: Vintage sheet
Binding: Vintage sheet – 100% cotton candy stripes
Quilting: Quilted by me on my machine
Batting: Hobbs Heirloom Wadding 80/20
Pattern: Orbit by Lindsey Rhodes of LR Stitched

I’m linking up with:

My goal for the month was to just get the quilt top made but as building work on the house was slower than anticipated (i.e. I was not evicted from the dining room until last week) I was able to get the whole quilt finished – great big hurrah!

Not so hurrah is the cold weather and this sight at the end of today:

Yep that’s right even more of the back of our house is missing! Spring/summer please come soon, our house is so cold.

Vintage sheets – January/February

Published on 06/03/2013 by Mary in charity shopping, fabric, Patchwork, Quilts, thrifting and Vintage. 10 Comments

It’s been a quiet few months on the finding front. A sheet from the car boot:

A handmade duvet cover from the charity shop, this was quite expensive, especially considering the one side was plain, but still I had to have it:

A couple of pillowcases in a fairly rare dark blue print:

A gorgeous pile of pillowcases in this print:

Fortunately I also had the UK and Ireland Vintage sheet swap going on. I think in the end we had 11 swappees and 200 or so FQ’s! I was so intent on sorting and attempting to meet requests for particular colours that I neglected to take any photographs.

Here’s a photo of the bundle that Judith received back that gives you a taste of the gorgeous prints and colours we had:

Judith was also incredibly quick off the mark and made up a block:

She then sent off some fabrics to her Brit Bee ladies who have made up blocks for her, so you may see them popping up on other blogs too!

Jan found that the arrival of the fat quarters helped her find her sewing mojo and quickly sewed up a quilt top:

And I’ve been sewing with mine too:

If you’re interested in joining a future vintage sheet swap then please do let me know here or leave a comment in the flickr group and get searching.

Vintage finds – December

Published on 14/01/2013 by Mary in charity shopping, fabric, swap, thrifting and Vintage. 4 Comments

I’m a little later than usual with my round-up of vintage finds for the month.

I’ve not been to the car boot sale for ages; illness, birthdays, exhaustion and Christmas have prevented me for getting out of bed and out of the house, so there was only one find in December:

This was once a vintage sheet but had been cut and hemmed and used I’m guessing as a tablecloth, my husband found them in the fabric bin in the charity shop, 3 pieces in all. One piece was labelled and it confirmed that it was once a twin flat sheet made in the USA.

This print here is a pillowcase found only last week but I’m using it to fill out this blog post!

What I can also show you though is this:

A pile of gorgeous vintage sheet fat quarters sent by Veronica from the USA for the vintage sheet swap that I’m organising. The cut off date for FQ’s to arrive with me is this Friday 18th January. So if you want to join in you’d better be quick, there is a fantastic selection of vintage sheet FQ’s stashed in a box under the bed that have been sent in to me and are ready to be swapped and sent back out. The flickr group is here if you want to join in or just spy on the wonderful selection of sheets that are being swapped.

Lastly here is the latest item to be made from vintage sheets and added to my etsy shop:

Yes, all ready for Valentines day, vintage valentines fabric tape, unique and handmade with love by me!

An empty cardboard box and a bed sheet

Published on 28/12/2012 by Mary in gifts, Scraps, thrifting and Upcycled. 7 Comments

So I’ve been absent from here for a bit, lots to catch up on but most of it can wait until I have time and peace and quiet to write.

I’ve been busy making Christmas gifts and here is one I’m quite pleased with:

Ok maybe in that picture it doesn’t look that impressive. They are marshmallow squares, a special Christmas edition with Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis), loved by my children especially with edible disco shimmer on top.

The question arose as to what to give my eldest brother for Christmas, he is not the man who has everything, more the man who is satisfied with what he has. So the girls and I made some marshmallow squares and some rocky road to give to him (yes he likes cakes and biscuits).

Rather than present them in a cellophane bag or plastic tub I pulled out a box that I’d put aside for such an occasion. Using the Inside-Out Box from the Ruby Star Wrapping book as inspiration I turned the box inside out and stuck it back together. However I’m sure you’ll agree that a grey/brown cardboard box isn’t that exciting.

The other dilemma I had was that the sticky tape had been removed from it’s home and no one knew where it was (I have my suspicions). What else to do but make my own tape? I pulled out a rather delicious red and white gingham sheet and cut strips from it and then stuck these onto double sided sticky tape, creating some festive looking tape, which I then stuck to the box (and all other gifts that needed tape!):

What I particularly like about this box (Geobars) is that it has a viewing window so you can peek at what is inside! I’m now looking at every cardboard box in a different light, assessing it’s potential for a new life!

Linking up with:

Vintage finds – November

Published on 04/12/2012 by Mary in charity shopping, fabric, thrifting, Upcycled and Vintage. 5 Comments

The Sew Mama Sew Giveaway post is here, there is still plenty of time to enter.

It’s been a busy month and I think I only made it to the car boot once, due to terrible weather (I can’t imagine anyone was out on those Sundays, buyers or sellers), illness and being away at the wedding.

So technically only the first two sheets were found in November:

The wonderful blue one was gifted to me on Saturday at the fair by some lovely friends Ant and Tatty, it was pulled from a bag of stuff at Tatty’s mums that was due to go the charity shop. I am delighted with it!

The others are all pillowcases that I found at the charity shop on my birthday yesterday! I’ll be chopping these up to add to charm packs available in my shop (use the discount code in yesterdays post for 15% off).

Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day – sewing and craft supplies (now closed)

Published on 03/12/2012 by Mary in craft, creative, fabric, giveaway, Patchwork, thrifting, Upcycled and Vintage. 423 Comments

Hello and welcome to all of you lovely people visiting for the first time as part of the Sew Mama Sew giveaway day and happy Monday to all my regular readers.

I’m Mary, I live in the south west of England with 3 young children and a wonderful understanding husband who for the most part supports my sewing habit whole heartedly (even fabric shopping for me when on trips to the US), oh and today is my birthday.

Back in May I opened an Etsy shop as an outlet for my excessive vintage sheet collection, thanks to all you who been helping me out by buying the kits and charm packs!

Today I’m giving away 3 packs of vintage charms – 126 charms in total. You could use them to make some baby quilts or to make one big quilt. I’ve made a few baby size quilts and would love to make a large one using my charms so I’m hoping that giving away some packs will motivate me to get on and make one.

The charm packs will include a selection of fabrics the same or similar to the ones here:

I’ll also enclose a pack of Vintage Fabric Tape, made by me using up scraps from my charm cutting.

And just as a thank you for visiting and because it’s my birthday, this week I’m offering you 15% discount in my shop using the code SMS1212 until Sunday 9 December 2012 at 9pm (UK time).

To enter please leave a comment telling me what you are most looking forward to doing this week, I’m looking forward to eating chocolate cake with sour cream that my husband and middle child baked yesterday afternoon.

For additional entries you can:
Subscribe to my blog (top right of this page)
Add my Etsy shop to your favourites
Like my Facebook page

Just leave an additional comment letting me know any of those you do and please ensure that I have a way of contacting you if you win.

Open internationally

Comments will close on Friday December 7 at 5pm PST (which is 1am here in the UK, funnily enough I’ll probably be asleep at that time so any comments left after this time will be deleted!)

The winner will be selected using Random Number Generator and will be announced by Sunday December 9.

I should also mention that I’m organising a Vintage Sheet Fat Quarter swap (predominantly for the UK and Ireland due to postage costs).

If you are interested in joining in check out the flickr group here

Lastly but not least don’t forget to head back on over to Sew Mama Sew for so many other fantastic opportunities to win.

Vintage finds – October

Published on 03/11/2012 by Mary in fabric, thrifting and Vintage. 4 Comments

Another month of successful hunting:

Quite a stack this month, some duplicates but mostly new prints to me:

The blue and purple floral on the 3rd row is 100% cotton and quite lovely, I might be using one of those sheets to make myself some pyjama trousers!

And don’t forget that the vintage sheet FQ swap is all set up over on Flickr, so if any of these take your fancy then go and find something to swap, FQ’s need to be with me in January so you’ve still got plenty of time to join in.

Vintage fabric finds – September (and a swap heads up)

Published on 05/10/2012 by Mary in charity shopping, swap, thrifting and Vintage. 5 Comments

Despite the fact that September was a wet month and there wasn’t a lot of fabric hunting going on I still managed to end up with quite a haul:

This has got to be the wackiest sheet I have ever seen:

As first glance it just appeared to be a pastel floral sheet and then I noticed the tortoise and then the pixie/elf girls – really quite extraordinary.

The manufacturer is Dorma, if any one had one of these sheets as a child I’d love to hear about it. I bought it from the charity shop on the way to school one afternoon and I showed it to one of the mums, she said it was the sort of thing that would have given her nightmares as a child and I’m sort of inclined to agree! The print is large so no good for charm squares, in fact I have no idea what I might do with it! I’m not sure using as a quilt back is the answer!

This item is actually a tea towel, I love the print and it would be awesome as a sheet if not a little loud!

I wrote last month about the vintage fabric swap I did with Veronica and have been thinking about organising a vintage sheet FQ swap in the UK. I’ve watched the US ones with envy so encouraged by Judith I thought I’d set one up here in the UK. This is really a bit of a heads up to get looking for sheets, we’ll do the swap in the new year so it gives you time to ~~nick them off your granny’s bed~~ find some. If you are interested in taking part I’ve set up a flickr group here so please go and join. You will not need to have a wide selection of sheets one could be enough! More details to follow in the flickr group. Happy hunting!

Vintage fabric swap

Published on 17/09/2012 by Mary in swap, thrifting and Vintage. 7 Comments

At the end of July you may remember me mentioning a vintage sheet haul from the charity shop:

Veronica a flickr contact couldn’t resist commenting and persuaded me into swapping with her. She is in the States and has a great selection of vintage sheet fabrics, so I browsed her photo’s and made my selection.

This is the bundle that she chose from my collection:

She was pretty desperate for that pink floral sheet on the bottom!

I received this glorious bundle in the post from her:

There is a whole lot of stripes in there, I’ve seen some great quilts around using stripes and would love to make my own. I also went for some more masculine colours to add to my stash for a vintage boy quilt.

Thanks to Veronica for persuading me again and if you every fancy swapping vintage goodness please get in touch or if you don’t have any to swap you could always check my Etsy shop! If you’re in the states I’m sure you’d love the Vintage Sheet Patchwork Swap group, a great chance to get your hands on some different prints!

Linking up with: