Fluffyland Craft & Sewing Blog

Tagged: vintage

a use-what-you-have kind of summer

coral reef fabricThis blog is filled with posts about me setting resolutions with the seasons and breaking them every chance there’s a sale… I keep promising myself I won’t buy fabric, and then I do anyway! Because buying fabric is fun, therapeutic, and inspiring.

But wading through bins full of that fabric is often much the opposite: it’s exhausting & utterly overwhelming. This summer, though, I’ve been determined to fight that overwhelmed feeling and make my way through my piles of fabric. Throughout my quest, I’ve been realizing that I have some really awesome stuff!

I frequently envy the many pictures of thrift shop or flea market finds that pop up on my favorite blog feeds. Often this envy is what sparks my desire to venture out into the world of fabrics to further saturate my stash. But through my current stash reorganization, I came to the conclusion that I, too, have fabrics and trims that are to be envied.

Today I’m cutting out a tote of this crazy-cool coral reef fabric, and reveling in my stash (and stash-busting). Now that I know what I have to work with, I have the power to make this a use-what-you-have kind of summer.

bright fog

creative dreams sink
through my senses, drowning me
in a reverie.

vintage buttons

Today was the Murray Hill Art Walk in Cleveland’s Little Italy, which is a 10-minute walk from my dorm. I passed the beginnings of setup on my way back from Church, and since it’s a brisk fall day and I have a moderate amount of homework*, exploration was necessary.

steps, steps, and stepsWe found a vintage shop where I got a handful of really exciting buttons (all buttons are exciting!) and two vintage handkerchiefs. I talked to Brian Jones, who makes spectacularly textured and very brightly colored paintings (and lots of them!). I found a paper boutique, and a building full of galleries that we plan to return to at some point in the future.

I love art. I love feeling creative, I love talking to people about creativity, I love seeing their faces when I am looking at something they’ve made. I can relate to all of it, and yet, I know nothing. It makes my heart so full and I just want to be like them, creating and showing and letting the world see things how they see them. It’s one of those “i would so be at art school right now if i could only draw” days.

Then I stopped by the darkroom to make some prints. My latest batch didn’t come out so nicely; they’re night photographs and I’m having difficulties making good enlargements. But I got some practice.

Now it’s time to exit that dreamy, colorful world and fall back into textbooks and numbers, integrals and potential energies…….. gross.

chalk boats

*moderate amount of homework: the amount that is not so large that it needs all day to be done, but not so small that it can be done without sufficient procrastination