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Fabric haul + Sunday musings
Sep. 18th, 2016 08:06 pmI mentioned last month that my aunt had passed away, and her sister is in the process of clearing out her house so that she can sell it. The trouble is that there is many many MANY years worth of stuff in it, and it is taking a long time + a lot of effort. Today was the "fabric edition" of the destash, and members of our social club were invited to come "shop" the collection, and take away whatever they wanted.
I had a lot of weird feelings over it. At the end, someone compared us divvying up the fabrics and patterns and books like a swarm of locusts, and that is kind of what it felt like. (I thought of it more like a show I saw once on African dogs, and how they ripped apart a gazelle in about 40 seconds flat, though it was more organized than that.) Like this was my aunt's possessions, and we were just taking them away like so much... well, possessions. But the organizers seemed pretty relieved that we were clearing shit out, and I really did try to think of it as helping them, so it became a little less weird (but I suspect the feelings will hit full force once everything is out of the house). We started with a lottery so that everyone had a fair chance at the most delightful goodies, and then after a few rounds, it was a free-for-all.
I brought home a big wad of cream linen, some silk noil, crinkle cotton, a couple jerseys, some delightful dark teal wool, a couple other wools (both light tans with a herringbone pattern), a gorgeously tacky striped fabric (likely poly), some pre-quilted fabric (one of which is just enough for a petticoat -- yessssss), the remnants of a beaver fur coat, a bunch of cottons for my sister, some trims and bias tapes, three dragon plushies, and a koala made out of rabbit fur. I don't even remember everything I took. I left most of it in the car for now, and will work on bringing it in over the week.
I also borrowed some Star Trek uniform patterns, as I decided a couple years ago that I wanted to remake my jumpsuit (that I first made when I was 14 years old, out of twill and flannelette, and finally got rid of a few years back). I will be returning those to the Club when I'm done with them. The instructions for one is rather hilarious. "This costume pattern is rather complicated. For the best result, if you are not an advanced costumer or seamstress, seek out someone who is." and a list of directions for sewing that all fit on one page. I managed it 20+ years ago, with help (I forget from whom, now), I'm sure it will be MUCH easier and way better now that I have a lot more experience under my belt. I also borrowed a couple of Next Generation patterns, just for fun. I really love the idea of a mini-dress right now :)
The other bits of my aunt's house that will be done is the Collectibles Edition, the Stationary Edition, the Chinaware Edition, and not sure what else. At least, we got the garage emptied to a few boxes.
After that, we went to my mum's house for Talk Like a Pirate party. I left for about an hour to go test drive a vehicle, which was really nice, but I'm not in the market to buy right now. I needed to do the test drive to get a free oil change coupon. I really liked that they didn't pressure me too much. He offered me a new vehicle that was less fancy than the one I have, for slightly more per payment with a lower interest rate, but still... I love my car. He brought a sales manager over to sign my coupon, and we had this conversation.
Him: so you drove a (model) - how was it?
Me: it was nice!
Him: do you want to buy it?
Me: not right now
Him: OK, here's your coupon!
I will definitely go back to them if/when I'm in the market for a new car :) They also had a BBQ, so I had some lunch, and then he made some notes in my customer file, and I was on my way :) Hung out for a bit at the party, and then came home.
Last night, just as I was turning out the light to head to bed, there was a HUGE crash. A vehicle had left the road and crashed into the fence and a tree outside of my building. Scared the crap out of me! I don't think anyone was injured -- I heard people talking, no one screaming for help. No sirens came, though I did notice police had arrived about 15 minutes later, and then a tow truck came to pull the vehicle out of the fence. I took a photo of the carnage this morning. Eek! A part of me wondered how fast they had to be going to do that, but, well, I had my collision almost 2 years ago at under 50km/hr (31mph) and the only thing that stopped me from meeting a tree or someone's house was the snow drift I ended up in. Still, I'm sad for the tree.
I think I'm just going to chill for the rest of the night and let my mock-up problem percolate still.
I had a lot of weird feelings over it. At the end, someone compared us divvying up the fabrics and patterns and books like a swarm of locusts, and that is kind of what it felt like. (I thought of it more like a show I saw once on African dogs, and how they ripped apart a gazelle in about 40 seconds flat, though it was more organized than that.) Like this was my aunt's possessions, and we were just taking them away like so much... well, possessions. But the organizers seemed pretty relieved that we were clearing shit out, and I really did try to think of it as helping them, so it became a little less weird (but I suspect the feelings will hit full force once everything is out of the house). We started with a lottery so that everyone had a fair chance at the most delightful goodies, and then after a few rounds, it was a free-for-all.
I brought home a big wad of cream linen, some silk noil, crinkle cotton, a couple jerseys, some delightful dark teal wool, a couple other wools (both light tans with a herringbone pattern), a gorgeously tacky striped fabric (likely poly), some pre-quilted fabric (one of which is just enough for a petticoat -- yessssss), the remnants of a beaver fur coat, a bunch of cottons for my sister, some trims and bias tapes, three dragon plushies, and a koala made out of rabbit fur. I don't even remember everything I took. I left most of it in the car for now, and will work on bringing it in over the week.
I also borrowed some Star Trek uniform patterns, as I decided a couple years ago that I wanted to remake my jumpsuit (that I first made when I was 14 years old, out of twill and flannelette, and finally got rid of a few years back). I will be returning those to the Club when I'm done with them. The instructions for one is rather hilarious. "This costume pattern is rather complicated. For the best result, if you are not an advanced costumer or seamstress, seek out someone who is." and a list of directions for sewing that all fit on one page. I managed it 20+ years ago, with help (I forget from whom, now), I'm sure it will be MUCH easier and way better now that I have a lot more experience under my belt. I also borrowed a couple of Next Generation patterns, just for fun. I really love the idea of a mini-dress right now :)
The other bits of my aunt's house that will be done is the Collectibles Edition, the Stationary Edition, the Chinaware Edition, and not sure what else. At least, we got the garage emptied to a few boxes.
After that, we went to my mum's house for Talk Like a Pirate party. I left for about an hour to go test drive a vehicle, which was really nice, but I'm not in the market to buy right now. I needed to do the test drive to get a free oil change coupon. I really liked that they didn't pressure me too much. He offered me a new vehicle that was less fancy than the one I have, for slightly more per payment with a lower interest rate, but still... I love my car. He brought a sales manager over to sign my coupon, and we had this conversation.
Him: so you drove a (model) - how was it?
Me: it was nice!
Him: do you want to buy it?
Me: not right now
Him: OK, here's your coupon!
I will definitely go back to them if/when I'm in the market for a new car :) They also had a BBQ, so I had some lunch, and then he made some notes in my customer file, and I was on my way :) Hung out for a bit at the party, and then came home.
Last night, just as I was turning out the light to head to bed, there was a HUGE crash. A vehicle had left the road and crashed into the fence and a tree outside of my building. Scared the crap out of me! I don't think anyone was injured -- I heard people talking, no one screaming for help. No sirens came, though I did notice police had arrived about 15 minutes later, and then a tow truck came to pull the vehicle out of the fence. I took a photo of the carnage this morning. Eek! A part of me wondered how fast they had to be going to do that, but, well, I had my collision almost 2 years ago at under 50km/hr (31mph) and the only thing that stopped me from meeting a tree or someone's house was the snow drift I ended up in. Still, I'm sad for the tree.
I think I'm just going to chill for the rest of the night and let my mock-up problem percolate still.
