F.A. (Fabriholics Anonymous)

One yard too many? Can one really have too much fabric? I use to say no, absolutely not! But, as of today, I say YES, you bet! We spent last week in Idaho, visiting family and friends, and buying fabric. Mom gave me some great pieces of fabric and then we went fabric shopping. I boxed it up all nicely and brought it home. As I loaded it into the closet with the rest of my stash, it became very heavy. I have so much that I don't remember what all I have or even which box a specific piece is in even if I did remember it. I have started to say that my hobby is not sewing, but fabric collecting. So, as of today, I will not buy fabric for 1 year! (Except for Snoopy fabric.) Bear in mind that I made this same oath in September of last year after our last trip to Idaho. I did well until we went to M&L Fabrics in California in late October where I promptly fell off the wagon. But, I am back on the wagon now and ready to go. When we made the big move to Arizona, I thought about getting rid of my stash, but after seeing that the only source of fabric in this town is Wal-mart, I moved my entire stash and bought more. So, I truly do believe that I have too much fabric, and the only solution is to get creative, get sewing, and stop adding to the problem. Wish me luck.

My Shirt

Bright colors are in. At least, that is what I read in Sew News. I hope so, because this is a new shirt for me. I fell in love with this fabric when I saw it in the fabric store, but it has lived in my stash for a long time. I got the buttons from my mom and just decided the other day that it was time for this particular fabric to leave the stash. The shirt turned out pretty good. For some reason, it is a little shorter than I would like. I can not figure out why either. I cut it from my basic sloper pattern. I was also smart enough this time not to try the bad black interfacing that I am supposed to be throwing away, so I did not have that problem to contend with. Sewing on decorative buttons is an interesting job. They do not sit nicely in the button foot of my machine, so it took at little extra patience and time to get these buttons sewed on, but I like them on this shirt, so it was worth the extra effort.

Purple and White

My husband was in need of a new shirt. This piece of purple fabric was lying on top of the my stash so, it was picked as his next shirt. The problem that I ran into was I had no matching thread. I dug though my box of thread and picked out all the purples I could find. When I showed the spools to my husband, who is my color coordinator, he picked white, bearing in mind that white was not one of his choices. I tried to talk him out of white, but he insisted. So, I started construction of his purple shirt with white thread. The more I sewed the more I liked the white on the purple, and after embroidering the white apple logo and sewing on the clear buttons, I liked the contrast even more. As you can guess, the moral of this blog enter is try an idea even if you just know it will look awful.

Send It To Aunt Nita

Pictured are two new shirts for the nephews that come with a little story. My sister had taken her grandkids, the nephews, shopping. (The two little nephews are actually my great nephews, but that makes me feel old, so we will just refer to them as the nephews.) On the shopping trip, they stopped by Joann's where they found this piece of transformer material. The nephews were excited about the transformers, so my sister bought what was left of the bolt. When she asked the nephews what they wanted made from the fabric, the oldest said, "Send it to Aunt Nita. I would like a shirt." This story just thrills my heart. I am so happy that the nephews like the things I sew for them. Upon receiving the fabric, though, I found out that there was not enough fabric for two shirts. So, I dug through my stash and found the Batman print for the younger nephew. (This was ok with the nephews. The younger nephew is by far a larger Batman fan than transformer fan.) I used the same pattern as before, and learn one obvious thing. Except for the previous entry in this blog about the last shirts, I made no other documentation on the pattern about lengths or sizing. So, during construction, I am scratching my head, trying to remember all the modification made to the last shirts. So, lesson learned. By taking a few seconds to write down some notes on a pattern, a lot of precious time can be saved later.

Internet Fabric

The first picture is of a piece of fabric that is my first purchase of fabric via the internet. I purchased it from Hancock Fabrics. I am not sure I would have bought this fabric if I had seen it in the store. I will, of course, still make something from it. I would have like to have felt the fabric before I purchased it.

The second picture is my second try at purchasing fabric from an internet source, e-bay this time. All I will say is fool me once shame on you, fool me twice... Although I love the Snoopy fabric, it was not what I was excepting. It is very thin, and I am afraid to wash it. It will not work for what I wanted to make with it, unless I get really creative. So, I guess that ends my career of purchasing fabric from an internet source. This makes my husband quite happy. Wal-mart is my only source of fabric for 100 miles, so it limits my ability to increase my stash.