Thrift Store Fabric Finds

Today, I rolled out of bed at the crack of dawn to go to some estate sales and thrift stores with my mom. Actually, by crack of dawn I mean 8am, but it's a Saturday and I am not a morning person by any stretch of the imagination. Thankfully, my early wake up time was not in vain however, as I found some adorable vintage Pyrex with a snowflake pattern, two good cookbooks, and, perhaps of the most interest to you readers, fabric and vintage sheets. There seems to be one Goodwill that consistently has fabric and it didn't let me down today. I also picked up three bed sheets to use as muslin fabric. You can buy a sheet at the thrift store for $2 and it contains significantly more fabric than $2 worth of muslin from Joann would.

I found five pieces of fabric today that just had to come home with me. They had more fabric but I am not too inclined to bring home yards and yards of itchy mauve or mustard colored 70s polyester. Tomorrow, I may try out a "burn test" to see what the content of my fabrics are, though I think I have a pretty good guess already. If you have read some of my previous posts you may know that I don't like to buy fabric without a specific purpose in mind, but I have decided that thrifted fabric is an exception to my self imposed rule.

I have just under two yards of the green fabric on the left, which I think is cotton. I have exactly two yards of the flowered fabric on the right which I think is a cotton shirting of some sort. Both of the fabrics are 44" wide. I think the flowered fabric would make a really cute blouse from a vintage pattern. The green fabric was $1.50 and the flowered fabric was $1.25. Here is a close up shot of the flowers.

 Next up is this pretty royal blue fabric that is about 50" wide and I have just over two yards. I think that this fabric is some sort of twill. It feels like it would be a good fabric for a jacket. This was the most expensive of the fabrics at a whopping $1.75.

Lastly are these two lovely fabrics that I am pretty sure are linen. They feel like linen, look like linen, and wrinkle like linen. They're each 44" wide and I have 2 1/2 yards of the yellow and 2 1/3 yards of the taupe. These only cost $1.50 each.

That's a lot of fabric for only $7.50! Does anyone else like to buy fabric at thrift stores? How about sheets to use just for their fabric?


I have been working busily on my Lisette dress. After looking at the pics of my muslin I decided to cut a size 14 everywhere. This helped to raise the waist up to where my waist naturally is, but it is quite snug through the bust. I know the only way to really fix this is to do a FBA, which I intend on learning how to do, just not on this dress. I have cut out my good fabric, sewed all the darts in the bodice, sewed the shoulder seams together, made my facings, and finished the seams on everything that should be finished thus far. Hopefully tomorrow I will have a finished dress to show the world.

Thanks for taking the time to stop by my blog. Happy Sewing!