Monday, July 2, 2012

Weekend Stash Acquisitions

Lately, I've gotten into the habit of "giving" myself $20.00 to spend every weekend at garage sales on whatever I want, and of course whatever I want usually turns out to be men's shirts to deconstruct for fabric. Sometimes, however, I get lucky and discover a sale with actual fabric for sale, which was the case this past weekend.

I stumbled across a woman selling some of her grandmother's old stash fabrics and project remnants.  Woohoo!  Vintage fabric!





Some of these beauties are clearly small-scale calicoes from the '80's or early '90's, but I'm thinking other prints may well date back into the '70's or even the '60's.  Check out that wonderful orange, yellow, and purple floral on the left in the last picture!  I love it!

Then there were these fabulous blocks that Grandma had made for her granddaughters:




The young woman told me proudly that her grandmother had drafted this leaf pattern herself, and then made blocks for her three granddaughters.  These were the only three remaining after they had picked their favorites to keep.  I love this last one with the odd 1970's conversation print containing horses and carriages, dogs, cacti, mandolins.

I haven't decided what to do with these three blocks.  A quilt back? Pillows?  Seems like they deserve to be featured somehow; I'm just not sure where.  Someday I'm sure I will find the perfect place.

There was also this terrific little box of cut octagons:


These are in all kinds of vintage prints and dressmaking fabrics--a little bit of everything thrown in there!  There's the one block that is put together, and then the rest simply cut and grouped into groups of nine.  I haven't decided what to do with these, either.  They could certainly be English-paper-pieced into a quilt top just as they are (which would be pretty retro, for sure), or added to with my own scraps for even more octagons, or even cut into 2" or 2 1/2" squares.  Right now they are simply a little box full of inspiration and discovery!

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