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Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Tuesday Twitterings and Scrap SF

This cartoon has been making the rounds on Facebook. (It is uncredited, if you know the name of the artist, please let me know!) If you re-colored her hair to red and replaced the brick wall with the Fabrix storefront, it would be eerily familiar... For some folks, just replace the word "fabric" with "sewing machines" or "yarn". ;)

Edited to add: I searched on the cartoon image (did you know you could do that?) and I discovered that this cartoon depicts Mrs Bobbins, created by Julia Icenogle for the Kansas City Star's quilting website, Pickledish. I also learned that there is a 2012 Mrs Bobbins calendar!

Scrap SF

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Have you ever heard of Scrap SF? I usually describe it as a thrift store for craft supplies. Years ago, when my kids attended a cooperative nursery school, I first learned about Scrap. It's a huge warehouse filled with all sorts of stuff. You just never know what you'll find - both companies and individuals donate goods. It's the perfect place to buy supplies for kids projects, though plenty of artists shop there for their own projects.

Today I noticed a corner filled with photos that people have taken and discarded! They have tons of foam core board and the like. They also have lots of buttons and fabric pieces. Today I saw an old Kenmore sewing machine for $5. (Nope, wasn't even tempted, as I'm not a sewist who collects sewing machines.) Anyway, it's unlikely you will see a fabulous, high quality fabric/button goodie at Scrap, but you never know and it's fun to poke around.

Eldest daughter recently needed to create an inspiration board for a fashion class she was taking at Academy of Arts University. I took her to Scrap and she was able to gather most of her supplies. That, plus a quick trip to a paint store for paint cards, then a quick trip through my own scraps, and, for an outlay of less than $5, she was all set. (She also found a huge bin of bathroom signage and she scored a Womens sign for her pad for 50 cents.)

I follow Scrap SF on Facebook and yesterday they posted that they had gotten in a lot of Natesh rayon embroidery thread and were selling it for $1 a spool. This is a very nice brand of thread, so I ran over very quickly, with Alabama Chanin thoughts in my head. I selected 35 spools in scrummy colors, and took them to the register. The sales clerk charged me $26 - they usually give a discount off the posted prices. I was dumping them into my purse, when she mentioned that this thread wouldn't be good for machine embroidery, but should be fine for hand embroidery.

This puzzled me as Natesh thread is for machine embroidery and, as 100% rayon, should be strong enough. She handed me an opened spool. (Mine were individually sleeved in plastic, as you see in the photo from their Facebook page.) I gently tugged and the thread immediately snapped. This thread, while looking perfect, was obviously ancient and brittle. Grateful that she had mentioned this, I retrieved my $26 and dug the spools out of my purse. Thanking her profusely, I told her I would not even use these for hand sewing.

This was a good lesson for me. It's easy to assume that thread is sound if it looks good. But thread ages. If I had, say, bought this on ebay, I might have been out of luck.

On the sewing front, I have been altering a coat pattern. I cut it out along the wrong size, so I *really* have to alter it, because I don't want to buy the pattern again. I also have plans to make youngest daughter a dancing skirt. And I have a jacket that has been in timeout for some weeks now. I really should pull it out of timeout and finish it. ;)

19 comments:

  1. Glad you weren't out the 26 bucks. Sounds like a neat place.

    Once a year or so I go through all my spools and give them a yank. If they break, they get tossed. Once I tossed out at least half of my threads and there were a lot.

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  2. Wow, Bunny! Thatsalotta thread! But it's a good reminder. When you put in all that work on a project, you want the best thread!

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  3. I haven't seen the cartoon before. It definitely made me laugh! Thanks for sharing.

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  4. I am always cautious buying 'bargain' thread for that reason. Thread is spun in a narrow temperature and humidity range for strength. As it loses moisture, it becomes brittle.

    When I lived in super-dry Colorado, sewists in my local ASG chapter taught me to store my thread in the refrigerator to maintain humidity!

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  5. What an excellent tip, BadMomGoodMom!!

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  6. ROFL on the cartoon - love it! You don't even need to color the hair anymore for me ;D

    Interesting tip about the thread & humidity - I guess that's a good reason to stay in the Bay Area.... & while we're on thread, I'm in a MAJOR clutter clearing mode - I had a large jar of "decorative" thread spools...they're all going to my local East Bay "Scraps" alternative today. Along with half a carload of other no-longer-loved-by-me goodies. Hope someone else finds value in them!

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  7. LOVE the cartoon!

    We have a similar place in Santa Barbara called "Art From Scrap"; they also have classes and art shows.

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  8. What a cool place! Cute cartoon. ;)

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  9. Thanks for posting the information about the origins of the cartoon. It was interesting to poke around her blog and not only see a few more cartoons but also to read about her process.

    BTW, is there anything you can't google?

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  10. lol, Carolyn. I also enjoyed looking around. I like to google and can spend the wee hours of my insomnia investigating this or that. ;)

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  11. That cartoon is absolutely perfect!

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  12. Now I know why I spend extra time tracing off my size from multi-sized patterns rather than cutting into them! Besides, I might want to use it again for someone else. Hope you're able to salvage your pattern!

    As a weaver, sometimes brittle threads can still be used as weft where there's not the same kind of tension on them. I have lots of weaving threads that are quite ancient indeed! There are several tricks for raising the humidity in your cellulose threads (which are much stronger when damp) while you're working with them. Linen is one that often needs lots of special care to weave with.

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  13. OMG! I've been looking all over for this wonderful cartoon. Not only did you find it, you found the author and NOW I need to buy her 2012 calendar. It takes so little to make me giddy...

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  14. That's an interesting tip... I've never stored thread long enough for it to go brittle but a good tip.
    And that cartoon is perfect! It should be me too...

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  15. Any pictures of older women in that pile of photos? I'd pay you back!

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  16. I'm really enjoying learning things here on your blog. Thanks for tracking down the origins of that cartoon!

    I used to do commercial sewing and embroidery and found that most rayon threads would easily break even when they are "fresh". I switched to Superior Threads' poly. It's stronger and more colorfast, too. NAY Are you overwhelmed with the urge to embroider something or just in love with colored threads? (I am)

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  17. I love the cartoon! Very true about the thread, very good tip!

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  18. I think Sydney has reverse garbage, maybe not just crafty stuff, but general discarded stuff from factories etc. Very nice of the shop assistant to point that out to you.

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  19. Interesting about the Natesh ageing. I use it all the time but always new. It might be the combination of the light and the plastic sleeve perhaps? I wonder if the inner thread might have been stronger? I'm glad you didn't end up with a load of poor thread.

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