Today's Haul!

Had a successful day today sewing wise. It started off with the Croft Mill fabric catalogue arriving in the post, which is always entertaining reading. I will be sending off for several samples from this issue. Then after a board meeting with QSAND (a local arts group), my mother and I bundled James into the car and set off for Standfast factory shop. On route we stopped at Sainsburys to get cash and so I could nip into Fabrix (a very good fabric shop in Lancaster) where I picked up a couple of patterns in the Simplicity sale (4082, 4171 and another one for sofa covers which wasn't in stock so I will pick it up tomorrow.

At Standfast, you have to cross a very busy road to get from the car park to the shop and normally mum and I dodge the traffic and make a dash for it. But with James in tow we had planned to walk all the way to the pedestrian crossing which felt like miles away as we were itching to see the wonderful fabrics! Luckily though, there was a good gap in the traffic so we were able to not waste any time in getting across the road and into the shop (not that I would ever endanger my son's life for the sake of building my stash of course!).

In Standfast, there was a great selection of contemporary furnishing fabrics in stock. I had to pick up some pieces to match the fabric I had aquired for the sofa covers. Basically, mum had given me 12m of a dull mint coloured ribbed upholstory fabric for the covers that she had bought to use as curtains but never used. It wasn't my colour of choice but because it was such good quality stuff it was too good an offer to pass up. My lounge is a biscuity cream colour with cream curtains so I had to find some cushion fabric that would link everything together. I bought three remnants and half a metre of a lovely butterfly print off the roll. I wanted contemporary florals and I think these fit the bill. I have photographed them against the mint fabric although the flash has made the mint look very bright, it's actually a duller shade but you get the idea. I am still worried that the overall look will be too cold looking as at the moment we have dark red throws so this will be quite a big change! To be honest I have had variations of red, burgundy and purple cushions and throws for years so it's time for a fresh new look!

I also looked at the liberty prints at Standfast and was disappointed to see that the price has gone up to £4.50 a metre! When I first started sewing in 2001 they were £2.50 a metre. Mind you it is still very cheap. I think they have had people snapping it up and selling on ebay as now there is a limit to how much you can buy. I love sewing with Liberty cotton as it feels like silk and is so easy to sew.

Then this evening after putting James to bed I sewed most of a dress out of wine coloured jersey. It's an out of print pattern that I picked up for a quid a couple of years ago. I've been wanting to sew it for a while as it's an unusual, but very simple design and is a bit 80's style. I will tell you more about it and show you some pics when I finish it off tomorrow. Anyway, time to go and do some more surfing before ordering my samples from Croft Mills.