I finally took some bags into the house that were from my New Year's Eve eve shopping expedition, and looked at the items I "scored". I think my best find, even though it won't be immediately used, is this:
You are looking at 3 yards of faux suede. This is the nice, thick, well made version, too. It's in a lovely deep purple. Perfect for making plenty of things, such as purses, slipper bottoms, trim, etc.
And according to Wisegeek,
"Faux suede is widely used to make clothing, shoes, bags and furniture. It is a soft, synthetic fabric made of 100% polyester. The material can come in many forms, including micro suede, a microfiber. It also comes in a variety of colors and patterns.
The word suede was originally coined by the French. The word comes from gants de Suede, which roughly translates to gloves of Sweden. The soft fabric was originally created to make ladies gloves. In many ways, faux suede is a better alternative to the real thing. It largely feels the same as real suede, and is easier to clean and more resistant to liquid than leather. Additionally, it is considerably cheaper than real suede, costing much less than half the price of the real thing."
Now, how cool is that? And did you notice the price? Yes, that is a 5 in front of that zero - 50 cents. And, because of the holiday, they were having a 50% off EVERYTHING. So, let's do the math here, folks. This piece measures 104 inches long x 52 wide. That's just under 3 yards of fabric, for 2-5-cents...say what? That comes to less than 1 penny per inch (.002403, to be exact), less than 3 pennies per foot (comes to a whole 2.88 cents, hehe) and a whopping 8.653 cents per yard. For faux (micro) suede - the good stuff - did I mention that already?
You found some excellent deals. I also frequently pop into Thrift shops to see what they have. I've found some great deals.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that you blogged about this topic. In early December one of my quilting pals told me about the good deals you can get on yarn at thrift stores. She said there were big bags selling for $3.00. Being new to crochet, I thought that would be a great deal, since I didn't want to spend too much while I was learning. Unfortunately, they didn't have yarn at that Thrift store, but I did score plenty of fabric for my eight-year old daughter. She's just started sewing. She's been hand sewing for about three months, and now I'm teaching her how to sew with one of my sewing machines.