Date: 10/28/08 1:14 PM

I just found yet another batch of beautiful fabric in my favorite thrift shop. Anyone else love sorting through the piles of weird, polyester double-knits; strange, faded cottons; and miscellaneous scraps of moth-eaten wool to unearth buried treasures?

My current favorite place is a "junk shop" sort of place. They buy the entire contents of houses, garages, etc. and you absolutely NEVER know what you're going to find.

Yesterday was fun because as I was finding about 15-20 yards of beautiful cotton shirtings I was wearing this skirt which I'd made from fabric I'd found there previously. The guy recognized the pattern when I mentioned it too.

I started shopping for fabric at yard sales and thrift shops because our budget is tiny and we've often lived in places where good fabric was hard to come by but I doubt I'll ever get wealthy enough to stop digging in those piles. Its just too much fun. :D

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3KB

"The combination of physical strength and moral sincerity combined with tenderness of heart is exactly what is wanted in a husband." Amelia Peabody Emerson

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Date: 10/28/08 2:30 PM

Me too! If nothing else, I get a bargain for making muslins.

We have a chain of stores in the DC area called Unique Thrift that are somewhat like a department stores, with neat aisles upon aisles of mainly nice clothing. They package random fabrics together in a clear plastic bag -- and to get the fabric you really want, you'll have to take the whole shebang. I've found some real treasures packaged with some seriously ugly fabric or remnants left from a long-ago sewing project.

Patterns come two in a bag. You can't mix and match your own, and you takes your chances on whether they've been cut or all pieces are there.

Some of my other local thrift stores have wildly varying prices on fabric. I've seen cheap pieces marked for far more than I'd pay at JoAnn's. Then there are some bargains on nice stuff at other places.

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Date: 10/28/08 2:48 PM

The guys at my favorite store tend to eyeball the stack then name a price. Nothing is actually marked and they'll negotiate, but since their usual price is $1-3/piece I only negotiate if there is storage-yellowing that I'm not sure I can get out.

The Habitat for Humanity store around here bags their notions the way you describe for those fabrics. They'll usually let you open bags if you want to check yardage or zipper length or some such thing though.

I've run into that priced-higher-than-new thing too. I guess that some people just have no idea what sewing things cost.

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3KB

"The combination of physical strength and moral sincerity combined with tenderness of heart is exactly what is wanted in a husband." Amelia Peabody Emerson

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Reply to Sewandwrite
Date: 10/28/08 3:25 PM

Do you know the location for a few of these? I looked them up and the only one I saw is in Silver Spring.

ETA: Is Value Village Thrift affliated with these stores?
-- Edited on 10/28/08 3:29 PM --

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Reply to 3KillerBs
Date: 10/28/08 3:28 PM

I have one shop that I pass on my way down the highway when I have to work out of town....I often find yardage that is very suitable for muslins for 25 cents or so a yard and also, but rarely find fabric suitable to wear.

I just love it though when I find enough cute/nicer quality cotton/jersey knit print to make quickly into a t-shirt or Jalie top and it costs me 79 cents!!! I'm trained like Pavlov's dogs to return the next trip out of town.

Mostly though it's muslin material ....and since I frequently end up with at least 2 muslins before I cut the good stuff, the savings can be substantial...especially since our local W@# M$%^ has quit carrying sewing material.

Happy hunting....ML

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Reply to Sewandwrite
Date: 10/28/08 4:03 PM

We have a local chain called Unique Thrift in Chicago, too. I wonder if it's the same company. Ours has a Purple Heart collection box out front so I know they get at least some of their stuff from Purple Heart. At ours, long yardages are hung separately near the linens. Shorter pieces are in those plastic bags. So are trims.

I have bought dozens of yards of fabric from their stores and another local chain called Village Discount Outlet. A good 1/2-3/4 of my stash is vintage cottons and nice silks and woolens from one or the other of these places. I have been trying to winnow down the stash and those are the things I am keeping. Most of my "mistakes" were purchased elsewhere--usually Hancock's or the dollar table at Vogue. I have been avoiding thrifts until I get a better handle on the immense stash I do have. It's harder than avoiding fabric stores--the serendipity "high" is hard to beat and I live practically across the street from one of the supermarket -sized Village Discount outlets.

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I am going for a level of perfection that is only mine... Most of the pleasure is in getting that last little piece perfect...Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just keep showing up and doing the work.

Chuck Close, painter, printmaker, photographer

Hope has two lovely daughters: Anger and Courage

St. Augustine

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Reply to 3KillerBs
Date: 10/28/08 4:05 PM

That storage oxidation almost always comes out when you soak the item in one of the Oxy-wash powdered cleaners.

Like you need that piece of information...

Sounds like fear of oxidation was the only thing holding you back!

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I am going for a level of perfection that is only mine... Most of the pleasure is in getting that last little piece perfect...Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just keep showing up and doing the work.

Chuck Close, painter, printmaker, photographer

Hope has two lovely daughters: Anger and Courage

St. Augustine

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Date: 10/28/08 4:16 PM

Our local thrift shop has laundry baskets full of fabric - $1 per piece, regardless of size. There are usually plenty of those scratchy poly knits and faded quilting cottons, but every once in a while there is a real gem. Recently I've gotten a piece of tan woven faux suede big enough for a slim or A-line skirt, a huge piece of ivory stretch velvet (kind of see-through, so still debating what to do with it), and a good sized piece of black stretch velvet with an olive green lacy print - I need to make a wrap shirt or dress for the holidays with that one!

Oh, and another thrift shop across town has a huge selection of "vintage" sewing pattern, 10 cents each. Every few months I stop over there - it is just fun when 30 patterns costs $3, and most of them haven't been used at all!

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Reply to 3KillerBs
Date: 10/28/08 4:31 PM

Funny you should ask this. Last week I was at our local Joanns and the district manager was there, prancing around the store, telling the poor manager how things should "look". I walked right up and told him a thing or two. I told him that most of us ladies who come through that door, didn't give a rodent's posterior if all the greens, purples, and blues were grouped together. As long as we could find what we want at a decent price. I told him, that with the Wal-mart Fabric Departments being fazed out, they should pick up the gauntlet and add a dollar table to their store. He then started to babble on about the RED TAG fabrics. I pointed out to him that most of those red tag items had been sitting for months and no one is going to pay $4.00-$10.00 for out of season material. It would sell at a dollar. He proceeded to tell me that they had the RED TAG at half off that day and often during the year and there were some on there at $1.00 and $2.00. I went over to the wall with him and showed him what they offered in that price range. It was sheers, and horrible feeling material. I told him we wanted cotton, cotton/blends and bottom weights and T-shirt knits. I tried to make him understand that most of us don't like spending $7.99 a yard for simple cotton prints to make a blouse. Even at 40% off it's not a deal. We can get one ready made at a department store cheaper. I told him that when Hancock fabrics first opened their doors(right across the street from Joanns)they had irregular bed sheets in huge "watermelon tubs" for a dollar a piece. It was like finding treasure. I don't know of any thrift, places around the Richmond, Va. area that would carry fabrics. Maybe I'm not looking in the right places. I love to be able to make a three piece outfit for under $6.00! I can do that with Wal-mart dollar material. These fabric stores don't get it. All of us are not into high end fabric. I just want something wearable at a cheap price.

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Reply to queensh
Date: 10/28/08 5:32 PM

Quote:

Is Value Village Thrift affliated with these stores?

queensh -- There's a Unique Thrift on Veirs Mill Road just north of Randolph Road -- right where Rockville and Wheaton/Silver Spring intersect. There's another on New Hampshire Avenue just north of the Beltway. Both are in former Ames department stores. They are, as tlmck3 points out, associated with Purple Heart.

At the N.H. Ave location, both Value Village and Unique Thrift are in the old Ames store -- one on each side. Both thrift stores are laid out similarly and the pricing is the grease pencil on a paper ticket stapled, usually twice, to an item.

In bags hung on the walls near the fabric, I've scored a big handful of full spools of Gutterman thread and a bunch of new zippers for cheap. But notions are hit or miss.

Both Value Village and Unique Thrift have the nastiest, most overpriced collection of ancient used sewing machines I've ever seen. Most are priced $49, look like they've been stored in a basement for eons, and don't look like they'd sew without a huge repair effort. This opinion you get from a vintage machine lover!

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