Treasure!

As promised, this post is about all my lovely new treasure from the Rag Market! I love buying fabric and planning all the things I’m going to do with my purchases. However my ever growing stash is pretty much begging me to stop… Thing is, I’m really quite good at buying fabric, I’m just not so great at the whole ‘making something with it’ thing…

After several months (years) of no sewing mojo after graduating from RADA, I think Stella might actually have her groove back. I’ll keep you posted!

If you love a bargain, (let’s face it, who doesn’t?!) Birmingham is the place to go! I only took £20 in cash plus whatever shrapnel I had in my purse as I knew I didn’t really have anything specific in mind, yet I still came away with 9 metres of fabric, 6 metres of curtain tape, a bag of curtain hooks, 2 bundles of 1″ elastic, a sheet of press studs AND a punnet of strawberries all for the grand total of… £20.73!!!

My mum spent a bit more money but I don’t think she spent more than about £35 in the markets. We both bought more treasure in Guthrie & Ghani later that day, but more on that later…

We both bought the graphic powder blue and the crepe back fabric with the little red and cream dogs – very cute! The only issue with buying fabrics from market stalls is that things aren’t labelled with the fibre content – I suspect the navy polka dot is cotton and the rest are probably all synthetics but it’s stab in the dark. Does anybody have any suggestions for patterns? Ideally I’m after simple tops and blouses.

Mum, unlike me, had gone with a plan in mind of what she was hunting for, and managed to buy pretty much her to entire list. The red ditsy flowers is especially sweet, and destined to be pyjama bottoms. She even managed to buy something in her current favourite colour-way of red, black and cream!

The only things pictured here that were not bought from the market but from elsewhere were the Indian print cotton in the top picture and the lavender polka dot below, both from The Fancy Silk Store . I had seen a girl at work in a cropped sleeveless shirt in an Indian style print and hunted online without success for something like it, but then all of a sudden this was right there, right in front of me when I rounded a corner on one of their many floors! Of course this came home too – too perfect and pretty to leave! In the bottom picture, Mum also bought the mocha coloured jersey and the magenta Dalmatians from Guthrie & Ghani.

I have a few more things from the weekend I want to share with you but for now, please leave any recommendations for nice top or blouse patterns in the comments.