Sunday Stash Report - a new year

I love the start of a new year with my stash report... get to start anew and forget all the purchases I made last year and start digging into the stash afresh for the year... except when the new year starts off with a splurge of fabric buying and no finishes so it was going to be all negative. Too avert that from happening I did a rush finish on a project.

Lets start with the fun stuff... the splurge. My daughter Fangirl (from Fangirl stitches) suggested to me over Christmas that I might like to consider having a stall at one of the geek conventions that she herself attends as a stall holder. Rather than going in on my own she suggested I team up with Gamergirl (my daugher-in-law) and share a stall. GG is an artist. She has a degree in games design and her speciality area was the art work. It coincided with my own thoughts along the same line. I sew a lot for Handmade With Love, a group that raises money for a school in Zambia called Our Rainbow House. I had purchased a variety of geeky fabric mid year and the things I had made from it had proved quite popular at our stalls leading up to Christmas and also on line.

Anyway - GG and I talked it over and have decided to give it a go. The next convention is in April but we both felt that was a little soon to get stock ready, particularly for her as she will have to design a whole portfolio based around the popular characters out there in the Geekisphere. So we are aiming for September which is quite a ways off but gives us both lots of time to prepare. (she is also going to look into producing stickers and badges which are popular at conventions).

So I went shopping at Make It Sew, the fabric shop close to Fangirl's home in Brisbane which specialises in fabrics from tv/movies and games. I only bought a bit over 7 metres  but when you consider fabric in Australia costs $25 plus per metre, that was quite an outlay. 

The shop owner gave me a 10% discount since I was sewing for charity which was lovely of her... but it was still a lot of money. I chose to get .5m in 14 different fabrics for a start plus 2 pieces from the discount basket .9m each. Now I am cogitating what to sew it into. I am thinking of zipper bags and pouches of various sizes for the main and perhaps a few potmits and hanging towels as well. Mostly though... bags of all sorts are popular my daughter assures me. I haven't ever been to one of these shows before so thinking I might attend the next one I can just to get an idea of what its like. 9.05m

I have managed one finish since I got home from our trip to Brisbane. My first finish for the year and finished off today so I could record a finish for the year to go with my input. I finished off a large cushion for the dogs. 

We have started letting them come into the sewing room when I am in it. (they were strictly out door dogs allowed in very occassionally) However I enjoy their company and decided that they could come in. They are pretty well behaved most of the time. I say "they" as whilst we only own one dog (Jack - an 8 year old Jack Russell cross) we dogsit every school day (and full time most school holidays) for a friend so Digby is ours most of the time as well.

 I bought a cheap dog bed to go in the room so they had somewhere to sleep but it was too small for the both of them, and mostly they don't share. 

I decided to make a cushion for the other one and stuff it with scraps and off cuts of fabric and batting. Initially I just made an "outer" but then realised that really it needed an inner too. Basically whilst the stuffing is washable it would be difficult to dry. If I made an inner and an outer I could at least wash the outer occassionally. So today... I whipped up an "inner" and transferred the stuffing to it, sewed it shut and then put it into the outer and again sewed it shut. I could have put in a zipper but didn't have one big enough. I could have put on buttons but a) I have yet to learn how to make button holes and b) the dogs would chew the buttons off I could be pretty sure. So... when I have to wash it I will unpick it, wash and then resew it closed. 

Digby on the cushion a few weeks ago. It took me a month or 2  to collect up the scraps to stuff the cushion with. You can see the pins on the left hand side.

Tadah. It was done. The cushion is 76cm square, approximately. I made it out of a rubber backed curtain off cut. 

I am going to start to make another one straight away. It will give me somewhere to put my wadding off cuts and "too tiny even for me" scraps. 2.16m

So my first report for this year sees me in the red. Hopefully it won't last long.

Week 1 and 2
Fabric used        2.16
Fabric added      9.05
Net usage         -6.89

Year to Date     
Fabric used         2.16
Fabric Added       9.05
Net Usage         -6.89

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