Goodwill

The Goodwill 50%-off storewide sale is awesome. I look forward to it with such joy in my heart. I mark it on my calendar and gaze at it happily whenever I happen by. I memorize the date, so that I can say things like, "No, we can't go to Indy next Saturday. That's the Goodwill 50%-off storewide sale." I plan the night before so as to get to Goodwill as soon as it opens at 9 am on the day of the sale (this Saturday, we were 9 minutes late. As Matt dropped me off on his way to the hardware store with the girls, he said, "Nine minutes late? Oh, please." And yet? I had to wait by the cash registers for a cart, and then follow the person with the cart out to her car, and then help her load into her car the 5,000 deoderants she had bought---which weren't even 50% off, because they were NEW!). I follow a strict hierarchy of departments to visit, based on what I want most, how crowded an aisle is, and if my arm is tired from pushing through overcrowded T-shirt racks.

I adore the storewide sale for numerous reasons: for one, I don't do a lot of shopping, so going on an actual shopping spree once in a while is fun. I also buy all our clothes, all our books and toys, and most of our household items used, so, for instance, Matt actually needed work pants, and Willow needed shorts for the summer. And I buy a lot of the materials I use in my handiwork used, so I'm always looking for wool sweaters to felt and T-shirts to quilt. Here's what I bought this Saturday:

• dinosaur matching game, because the girls love dinosaurs



• dinosaur pop-up book, same rationale



• wading pool that must be tested and may or may not be returned, based on how massive it is and whether or not I decide it's actually an extravagance



• 6 pairs of shorts for Willow for the summer, one of which is identical to a pair of Matt's cargo shorts--awesome. I need now to make her some ribbon belts to hold them up, since they're a little roomy.



• flowery dress for Willow, unnecessary but very pretty



• 2 pairs of work pants for Matt



• one pair of jeans for me, one pair of brown pants, and one pair of brown pinstripe trousers--awesome. Only the jeans need to be hemmed, even.



• Sewing for Dummies--awesome.



• 3 wool sweaters for felting into stuffed animals or quilt blocks for some crib quilts I'm thinking about making



• one stripey shirt, two peasant tops for me.

• two hoodies for me, both brown, yet both different
• two ringer tees, for me and Matt


• half-dozen or so tie-dyed T-shirts for a quilt I'm making for us, to match one I donated to Willow's Montessori for an auction and really liked



• three dinosaur T-shirts for a quilt I'm making for the girls



• one Superman T-shirt for Matt



• three Star Wars T-shirts for a quilt



• one Captain America T-shirt for a quilt



• four or five pillowcases for summer dresses for the girls, including a couple that match--awesome



• one burgandy fleece blanket for a quilt backing



• one Christmas-themed T-shirt for a quilt



• one World's Best Mom T-shirt for a quilt



• The Mouse and the Motorcycle, a chapter book to read to Willow at bedtime

Whew. And for way less than a hundred bucks.

More New Findings

Here's what I've been looking at this week while nursing Sydney, sitting in the back of the room during storytime at the library, or hiding in the bedroom during my 20-minute off-duty time when Matt gets home from work:

Threads is pretty much entirely over my head, but since I'm only really just becoming interested in sewing or altering clothes for myself--I sew quilts, things for the house, and clothes for the girls all the time, but subsist, myself, in thrift store clothes in which fit isn't always my main priority--I read it anyway, in search of a place to begin. A peasant top, perhaps?

I have a button machine that makes 1" buttons--I bought it because there's a terrific profit in buttons, since they're quick and easy to make and popular to sell--but I just as often make buttons to give as gifts or for Willow to wear or to put on my own backpack. I use a 1" hole punch to take button graphics out of magazines, picturebooks, or vintage papers, but being inspired by badbuttons.com, I'm trying to convince my partner, who is a grapic designer, to make me some awesome original designs.

by Tsia Carson, is a terrific DIY book that introduced a load of new projects to my to-do list: Kool Aid Yarn, Recycled Yarn, Bag o' Bags, Knit Hammock, Shrink Plastic Necklace, Button Cuff, Embroidered Screen Door, Rice Table, whew! Her pattern for T-shirt panties could very well be the trick I need to improve my own pattern, which for some reason results in panties that keep getting more granny-like every time I make them. She also has this terrific Web site, SuperNaturale, which has tutorials and showcases of designers and projects focused around a frugal and sustainable craft ethic. A lot of this stuff, obviously then, makes use of recycled materials.

Another encyclopedia-like book, and this one is vast, is The Crafter Culture Handbookby Amy Spencer. It has about a billion projects, many of them made from repurposed materials, and not just the obligatory refashioned T-shirts and button jewelry but also Chinese lanterns from colanders, brooches made from teeny fabric scraps, the pillowcase dress, and so on.

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A Few of My Favorite Blogs

There are a few other blogs I know about that also explore the DIY culture, also from the perspective primarily of re-use and recycling. When I find a blog I really love, I tend to treat it like a must-read novel, starting at the beginning and reading it all the way up to the present, often in a great big glut over the course of a couple of days. Here are some glut-worthy:


Crafting the Web has a really great combination: some projects with tutorials, some product reviews, and the best of all--thoughtful advice about various topics involved in running an online craft business. Her suggestions for advertising an etsy shop are really useful, and it was a terrific post about the possibilities of starting an online crafting information resource supported by ad revenue versus an online retail store that inspired me to start this blog as the first step towards my own online business someday. Her projects aren't necessarily recycled, but since they're mostly paper-based, they tend to support well the re-use of papers.


Some of the projects at the Craftzine blog are too elaborate for me, and some utilize skills I haven't yet learned, but they're beautiful to look at. Many of the projects with tutorials use repurposed materials, and this site also often explores the art along with the craft, with posts about exhibitions and innovative designers.


Dynamite.com has project tutorials, often using repurposed goods, in nearly every post, and they also include workable recipes. They do a lot of fabric, paper, and yarn art, and they also just look really friendly, I think.


Perpetualplum's Weblog also showcases her recycled work, and she works at a level of skill and craftsmanship that I hope I can someday obtain. Her jewelry is intricate and beautiful and vibrant--and often made of buttons! She works with game pieces a lot, too, but her projects are just in a whole different world.


I really ought to submit my stuff to the Re-craft blog, which is dedicated to highlighting those etsy wares that are made of recycled materials. It's useful and inspirational to see what others make and sell, especially since I'm relatively new at online business and all it entails.


The Craftgossip Blog Network also posts primarily recycled products and artwork, but if something links to Craftster, you'll generally find an awesome tutorial and discussion there, and some DIY project books give me more incentives to annoy the aquisitions department at the Monroe County Public Library.

Rostitchery is the most beautiful, most perfect blog ever. I love it--she has a daughter, too, maybe a year older than Willow, and she's a brilliant seamstress, so she keeps me flush with dress patterns. I made a pillowcase dress for Sydney roughly based on one of her tutorials, only where she uses the sweetest, most flowery, and precious pillowcases, I sort of used an old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles one. Sydney rocks it, of course. And it was her post about making her daughter some Max and Ruby stuffed "babies" that gave me the idea to try soon making my girls some stuffed dinosaurs (not like the ones I'd like to sell at the craft fairs this summer, but simpler and more satisfying to little ones, most likely).

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