New Sewing Room (fka Living Room)

So Wednesday I bought a thrift store desk for just $5!  Sadly, it won't go through my interior doorway to get into the room I was making into a sewing room (I've been sewing on my kitchen table).   

So ..... today I went back to the thrift store and bought a little corner tv table I'd seen earlier in the week, so I could free up my new desk.   When I went in to see if they still had it, I discovered it had been marked down to just $1!

So I slid everything over to the edge of the desk ....

And was faced with this! 

After unplugging, untangling, and replugging every single wire I finally I ended up with this!

Then I commenced to folding the wads of material I had on my kitchen table and moving it to the desk, along with my cutting mat ...

I'm going to have to get BoyChild to make me some kind of collapsible leg for this ledge that pulls out. If you pull it out more than about 14" it begins to sag.  

The center two panels are actually just one deep drawer with a rack for hanging file folders.  I have some hanging folders so I am going to make this my pattern drawer! 

This top drawer is big enough for all my rulers (the 6 x 24 and the 12 x 12 both fit in here with ease!)

Pins, markers, scissors, and room for more.

18 x 24 cutting mat.

So then I stacked the fabric in the 'other room' and brought my sewing machine from the kitchen table. 

The top of the desk is 36" x 60" !!

So what if my living room is now my sewing room?  There's nobody living here but me and an occasional four-year old.  

And I have no idea why there is duct tape on the desk, it is very solid and in no need of reinforcements by duct tape!  

I'll still use my 'sewing room' to store and organize fabrics and supplies, but the actual sewing will take place in the living room.

Did I mention this desk was only $5 !!!

(Disclaimer:  Yes, those are poinsettias you see on my shelf.  I forgot to put them away last year when I put away everything else.  But hey, it's almost Christmas again, right?)

Thrift Store Desk

Well my $5 deal on the thrift store desk to use as my sewing table is still a good deal even though it wont fit through my interior doorways to go into my sewing room!!  (This thing is heavy and solid.  Not the prefab stuff we can take the back or side off of to get it in the room).

Definitely got more than $5 worth of labor out of BoyChild and BabyBrother, huffing and puffing and pushing and pulling and rearranging. 

And I got to see my SweetSadieMae .... so I think it was worth $5 even if I do have this huge hunking piece of furniture sitting in my living room!! 

This all occurred on my lunch half-hour (ok, I  may have taken a wee bit more than a half-hour today) so no action pics (and sadly no pics of SweetSadie) but here are the 'after' pics.    There was a small desk sitting here with my tv on it, but now I have the big one in it's place.  The small one is in the sewing room. 

I have an 'idea' of how I'm going to make all this work.   I'll be dragging and pushing furniture around this weekend, and if my idea works I'll unveil it here on the blog.  If not ........ hmmmmm .....

(And I have no idea why there is duct tape on this desk unless it was used to hold the drawers shut at one time, because this thing is solid and needs nothing to help hold it together.)

And let me just say, 42" is way to big for a computer monitor unless you have a wireless keyboard/mouse and can sit across the room!  (This is a one night only setup, I ordered my dad a new computer and I like to get it ready to 'plug and play' with all his pictures and favorites loaded before I take it to his house.)

Hexies And More ...

I'm working along with Polly for this half-hexie quilt along.  You can see in her instructions I will need at least 84 half-hexies.

You can see in this picture I need 82 more! 

I had planned to cut quite a lot last night while the wee one was at Bible School, but instead I had to spend my time on the phone with DirecTV about some issues with my DVR (still not resolved, still troubleshooting, which means another call today, argh!)

So this morning before work I just had to cut those two hexies just to see what it was all about.  Yay!  I love them!  Will be time consuming til I get a few under my belt then I hope it will speed up. I'll cut more tonight (I should get a lot done with no tv to watch, right?)

I also went to our local thrift store yesterday to look for baby things (I go at least twice a week!)

I got this baby bathtub ... and loaded it up with fabric pieces!

The yellow and hot pink pieces are a jersey type fabric that I hope will make up into some baby washcloths / towels, or maybe the backs of some burp cloths / bibs (or all of the above!)

The green is corduroy, the burgundy is fleece (a HUGE piece for $1.00), 2 yard of the orange cotton (I have some Halloween fat quarters / remnants that I can pair this with). 

I also scored this playmat (with lights and sound!) for $2.00!

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Edited to add:  Wednesday night I got three (of nine) fabrics cut!

Thrift Store - Part Deux

You might want to read yesterday's Thrift Store Find post first ....

 

I went back today and picked up four more bundles at $1 per bundle.

 

The blue is 100% cotton, the stripe is kind of "silky" (but heavier than silk), and the diamond pattern is heavy weight and textured.

 

 

Three shades of linen ...

 

This is a heavy weight (I didn't look at the tag to see what blend it is) but I really like it.  Much prettier than the pic (again, iPhone pics).

 

I tried to get up close so you could see this black fabric.  It's heavy, and 'fuzzy'.  Not carpet of course, yet it reminds me of it a bit.  Not sure what I'll do with it, but it was in the bundle.

 

That center strip below (lower strip above) is 100% cotton. 

 

The tree/flower piece (below) is some kind of blend, mid-weight, the other four are cotton. 

 

Looking forward to diving into these with the scissors.  I might just have a purse/bag for every day of the month!!

 

(Like yesterday's finds, these are also varying sizes from 26" x 26", to 26" x 42").

Thrift Store Find!

I often go to our local thrift store (small, run by a local church) looking for clothes for the four year old, or baby gear for the (due in 37 days as my DIL reminded her FB friends today) new granddaughter. 

Lately I've been looking for fabric remnants, and have had moderate success on a few things that I can use for bags / linings or something small.

Today I struck gold!

These are indoor iphone pics (it's storming this afternoon) so use your imagination a little bit on the colors.

These are all some kind of samples, I have no idea what from/for nor do I care!

These four are a knit fabric.  The best way I know to describe it is kind of like the knit pant suits ladies used to wear.  The black has the same green palm tree the white has.  The design is embroidered.  These panels are all 26" x 26".

I'm not sure what I will do with these since they can most likely only be used in a project with each other due to fabric type.  

These three seashells panels are also 26" x 26" and are 100% cotton.  They are a very heavy fabric (not too heavy for quilting I don't think, but much heavier than what I bought at JoAnn's last week!

And there are three corresponding/matching sailboat pieces, all also 26" x 26" and 100% cotton. 

This owl fabric is 40" x 26" and is also 100% cotton. 

There is also a floral panel that is 40" x 26" as well.  

And I got all of this for (are you ready for it?).......

THREE  DOLLARS!!!!

They were in three bundles, for $1 per bundle.  

There were more bundles, but not being able to tell for sure how big the panels were I only bought three bundles.  I'm going back tomorrow!!  

There were a couple of bundles that were probably some kind of upholstery (very very heavy, one was fuzzy!) so I won't bother with those, but it will definitely be worth $1 per bundle to see what's in another couple of bundles.  

Yay me!!  

UPDATE:

The moral of this story is ... if it sounds too good to be true ...

I used the labels on the fabric to do a little research and found a couple of the fabrics for sale at JoAnn's.  However, these fabrics are DRY CLEAN ONLY!  What!!  Argh!!

Since they are 100% cotton, I decided to do a little experiment on two pieces (NOT the owls!) and toss them in the wash anyway.  I put them in cold water on the gentle cycle.  I hung one to dry and put the other in the dryer on LOW heat.

They are still in great shape, and they are still 26" wide.  However, they are not only 39" long (they started out at 42").

So, I guess this means these fabrics will need to be used for something other than quilts!  That's ok though because I can make some great bags out of them (which is what I was thinking of doing with them anyway when I bought them).

So, in spite of this startling discovery, I still think this find deserves a Whoop Whoop, and I'm still going back today to look at the other bundles again.

(Edited to add: yes, I did go back.  See Thrift Store Find - Part Deux.)