A what?

My honey: What are you doing?
Me: Making a nosegay for Linnea for having us over for dinner tonight.
My honey: A what?
Me: A nosegay!
My honey: (pause) That's what I thought you said.


I was inspired by my friend Bonnie, who always brings beautiful bouquets from her garden when she visits. I rescued an old vanilla bottle from the recycle bin and used some herbs from our garden, since I don't grow flowers... or anything else, for that matter. So I got to repurpose a glass bottle, say "thank you" to a hospitable friend, and teach my manly-man of a husband a new word. I guess "nosegay" is a silly word, but it's fun to say. Nosegay. Perhaps my next craft should involve a peplum.

Shopping Beyond the Fabric Store

Have you read yet about my super-amazing fabric-shopping extravaganza? It was months ago, but I'm still on a materialistic high about getting so much beautiful fabric for little money. I prefer to think of myself as not that greedy, so why was this trip different? I think I enjoyed actually shopping for fabric where fabric is sold. The novelty! We live in a somewhat rural area without fabric stores nearby, so fashion fabric is hard to find. The nearest "real" fabric stores are over an hour away.

In that vein, I thought I'd share where I do get my fabric. I'm not a very prolific sewer, but somehow I've accumulated a ton of stuff. Here's how I do it...

Shop your closet
It's good to periodically get rid of clothes you no longer wear. Before you donate it to Goodwill or (gasp!) throw it away, look at it your clothing as material for another project. I did Wardrobe Refashion last summer and had lots of fun. Thimbly Things and Threadbanger are two of my favorite sites for inspiration.
These are a few more refashions I'm planning:
A skirt for Violet
tee-shirt refashions
dress shirts into a toddler dress
tee shirt into undies
repurposed wool sweater into a hat
Another skirt from old pants

Shop the Thrift Store
Last Christmas I wanted to make these slippers for my in-laws, but didn't have time to order the nice wool felt. (It ended up not being an issue, since they ended up getting them in March. No wait: April. That's pretty bad.) I got these two 100% wool coats at Goodwill, took them apart, and made some cute, warm slippers out of the material. Unfortunately, I didn't get any "after" pictures. Sad.


Shop your neighborhood
Yard sales are a great place to find super-cheap materials and notions from procraftinators like myself. Here's some loot I found at a yard sale two summers ago:


There's an upholstery shop within walking distance of my house. They were having a sidewalk sale to get rid of the remnants off of the big rolls of fabric. I got this for about $3/yard. I have visions of recovering a chair in it... now I just need to find a chair.


Shop a big-box store
Some WalMart stores still have fabric and notions. They are being phased out (which is a horrible business decisions considering the resurgence of the crafting movement) but some stores still have them. I got the fabric for this sling at Ikea, as well as some other fun prints. I had intentions of making summer clothes for Violet, but the season has come and gone. Maybe next year...

Have you ever considered using bed linens? I love the super-soft jersey sheet sets--I saw some at Target the other day for $18 for a full set, which works out to $3.46/yard (for 80 inches wide, which is plenty of fabric).
Here are the yardages I worked out:
Twin Sheet: approximately 2 2/3 yards with 70 inch width
Extra-Long Twin Sheet: almost 3 yards with 70 inch width
Full or Double Sheet: 2-2/3 yards with 80 inch width
Queen Sheet: 2-2/3 yards with 90 inch width
King Sheet: 2-7/8 yards with 100 inch width

That's a lot of tee shirts.

Shop the internet
I've only purchased from fabric.com, so I'm no expert. There are lots of sites out there, but for my next purchase I intend on using Gorgeous Fabrics, because of the pattern suggestions.

By shopping outside of fabric stores, I save gas, money, and time. Plus, it's just fun being creative and discovering fuel for your craft in unexpected places. Just be warned: too much inspiration, and your sewing area can look like this!

Easiest. Scarf. Ever.

Seriously. This project was such a fun one, because it was soooooo easy. This is a perfect craft for a tired momma--I made this while I was still in California, during the craziness that is dinnertime, with four little cousins chasing each other around the house, Mom making dinner, me chatting with Corrie, and somebody at the door. And despite the chaos, it probably didn't take more than 15 minutes, at the most.


While in LA's fashion district, I was haunted by this pretty fabric, and after walking long enough I figured out how to use it. I bought one yard from a very nice man, and I still wish him well for giving me such a good deal.


It's a semi-sheer burnout jersey material. I cut across the selvage, so I was able to squeeze three 12" x 60" sections out of one yard. The hardest part was keeping everything everything square. I would have made a big crooked mess if it weren't for Mom's mat and rotary cutter. I didn't finish the edges or sew anything. Just cut the fabric, and you're done.

Easy peasy, lemon squeezy!

Mom, Corrie, and I each got a fun scarf for the price of 1 yard of fabric. We immediately started playing dress-up, with everything from Thelma and Louise-type styling to hajibs (Corrie spent a semester in Cairo). If silly isn't your thing, here's how I wore it going to the Farmer's Market Saturday morning.


By the way, this would be a great no-sew, fast and cheap Christmas gift. Just don't tell anyone how easy it is!

My new stash

My fabric stash just got a whole lot bigger! When I was visiting my family, we went to LA's garment district and I made out like a bandit.

We went to Michael Levine's first and it was totally overwhelming. The loft of a warehouse had rows and rows of cardboard boxes as tall as my waist, each one stuffed with fabric. After 10 minutes, I almost felt like I had enough stuff for the whole trip. Fortunately though, I pushed through and got yards and yards more! (Whew, that was a close one!)

Here's the big list:

• 3 cones of serger thread
• 6 rosettes for baby clothes
• 9 yards of fold-over elastic
• material for 5 jersey tee-shirts,
• 3 scarves,
• 1 knit shirt,
• 1 woven dress, and
• 2 jersey dresses.

The grand total? $26.60. For everything. I even double-checked with one of the vendors at one point, because I couldn't believe the total was so low.

I feel like lovingly stroking the beautiful pile of fabric late at night and calling it, "My Precious." This is enough material to last my intermittent sewing hobby for years.

Whoops, here's one more number I'd better include:

• The new duffel bag to cart all this loot home again: $9.99.

Totally worth it.

My trip to LA's garmet district

I'm ruined for fabric stores forever. I don't think I can ever pay for sewing supplies at retail prices again.

When I was visiting my family, we got some amazing babysitters and Mom, Corrie and I all went together to LA's fashion district to purchase fabric and sewing supplies. It's the new home of Project Runway and something like nine times bigger than New York's fashion district. This fashion district has been around for a long time, and has suffered from jobs moving to Asia. Do you know how hard it is to buy clothes made in America? The only company that comes to mind is American Apparel and the CEO is a creep. But I digress. I'll be able to have my own sustainable, fair trade, made in America clothing, made by me!

It was a little bit like being in a foreign country. There were lots of tiny little stores with merchandise lining the streets. The shop proprietors were all ethnicities and haggling seemed acceptable.

I got a major payload at Michael Levine. It was in a loft of a warehouse, and fabric was just dumped in large cardboard boxes. Everything was sold for the flat rate of $2.00 per pound. It seemed like most of the other shoppers were students.

We got lunch at the very international food court (one vendor was even advertising halal meat, which I have never seen before). Corrie and I got Vietnamese Pho, which is a fresh soup I've been wanting to try for a while. I got seafood and Corrie got beef (and accidentally ate tripe amidst the meatballs and skirt steak). Mine was delicious--too bad it made me sick. I realized later it probably contained gluten, which is a major no-no for this celiac chick.

We had a great time and I stocked up on enough fabric to fuel my sewing for the next few years. Next post, I'll show you my loot and brag about how cheap it was. If you don't count the babysitting... and the airfare!

I'm back!

(Note: this is cross-posted on my other blog.)
I'm back! Well, back to Virginia at least. I'm not back to full energy or even back to myself for that matter, but I'm definitely feeling better. Basically, life with two little ones was kicking my butt, so I went to my parents house to rest and recharge. It was a wonderful visit.

It was eye-opening, too. I had lots of help with my two little girls and was relieved of all cooking, cleaning, and household responsibilities and I was still wiped out at the end of each day. If I felt tired on vacation, no wonder I was exhausted at home!

I have two posts from my visit that I'm looking forward to sharing with you, but I need to go to bed. In the meanwhile, here's a scrapbook page that my mom did during our visit. Here's my sister-in-law Corrie with her two beautiful children and my own Violet and Faith, playing in the park. Fun!

Who is this person?

... you might be thinking. "Why is this random person showing up in my RSS reader? Oh yeah... Rachel the Procraftinator. She really lives up to her blog name."

Instead of apologizing again for not posting more, let me say this and then move on: having two kids is a lot of work.

I did have the opportunity for a smidgen of creativity, however. You might remember that my mom sent me two bento boxes after she visited my brother in South Korea. Has lunch ever been this adorable?

These things are so handy. They can pack a surprising amount of food despite their size, but they are still portable enough to slide into a diaper bag or purse. Plus, they are cute. I don't need any more reasons than that.

Sometimes I pack both of them and take them to our church's community group for Violet and her little friend. We meet at 5:30 pm which makes it difficult to feed toddlers dinner beforehand. Plus, these kids are so sweet and play together so well, I figure I can ask the babysitter feed them and work a little for her paycheck. (Just kidding, Jessica!)


I made this for them a few weeks ago. It was fun to do. It's a yogurt seaside sunset; I hope you figured it out. Blueberry water, orange and honey sun, and molasses birds. I also packed a buttered muffin and some cereal to eat with the yogurt. I had fun making them, but didn't bother showing my manly-man of a husband, who is from the "just eat it" school of food presentation. So because of their small size and convenient shape, they got turned sideways and upside down in the diaper bags in the rush to not be late to church.

For the most part, the kids just ate it.