Okay, I will fess up, that I picked up a couple of pieces of this happy mail earlier in the week, but this is my first day to share it all!

So first up we have my Kona Solids from Simply Solid Fabric on Etsy.  Sue has fabulous deals on Kona Solids, including bundles such as 7 yards for £25.50 and 9 yards for £32.  Given that each of these bundles will fit in a priority mail envelope at £8.60 for postage, it’s an absolute bargain!  I got 2 9 yard bundles and one 7 yard bundle to allow for the best postage (there’s a 24 yard one, at £85, however the weight of that for postage outside the US was cost prohibitive). 

Here’s the single yard lengths I bought:

And I got 3 yards of each of these:

Next along was the delivery of my fabric for the UK & Ireland Japanese Charm Swap being hosted by Cindy at Fluffy Sheep Quilting  I’m quite glad I ordered an extra metre of this from Fabric Inspirations:

These also leapt into my basket with the Japanese fabric.  The blue dotty corduroy is also Japanese, and the brown corduroy is a Robert Kaufman one.

Then there was the book shopping.  I actually bought these before I went on holiday, but they weren’t delivered to my gran’s until after I left, so I had them to come home to.  I haven’t had time yet this week to peruse them, but can’t wait to get to it!  For those you can’t squint at the photo to read them, I have (clockwise from top left) How To Use, Adapt And Design Sewing Patterns, Couture Sewing Techniques and Sew What Skirts all at bargain prices from Amazon:

Now we come to the real life shopping.  My friend Jo today indoctinated me into TK Maxx shopping.  I went in there entirely to see what I could find to refashion/upcycle at a decent price, since we’re rather short of charity shops in the East End, and I’d been seeing some great projects on a variety of blogs.  I had actually spotted these when I was in there briefly earlier in the week with another friend who was hunting for rather elusive bedding (as a tip, avoid buying super king size, they’re a nightmare to find anything for, and we trawled about 5 shops over 2 lunchtimes before we actually got what she needed!).  This is actually a single duvet cover, but it has these beautiful birds embroidered on, with some printing around.  TK Maxx price, £19, RRP £80 – eeeeek!  Beautiful as it was, I wouldn’t have spent £80, especially not for a single, but at the price it was, it was cheaper than similar fabric would have been to buy:

And now the clothes.  This is the XL/XXL nightie, and I think would actually fit both Jo and I in it, being second only to a tent!  Still, I liked the fabric and I have visions of a skirt, and more, and it was only £8…

This was seriously peculiar.  It’s supposed to be some kind of summer coverup thingy from Roxy. and has a built in bra bit, but then has this really odd elastic bit that comes part way down the thighs – most peculiar!  It was originally £60 (WTH?!) and I got it for £8 :oD  I’m seeing it as at least part of a skirt, we’ll see how exactly I can deconstruct it.  At least the odd elastic bit is only casing.

This is another huge garment, also of odd proportions.  It says on the label it’s a vest, but it’s certainly much longer than that, and I’m sure if one were suitably daring, one could wear it as a dress.  The world will be relieved to know, I’m not that daring!  Still, it was only £6, and I can at least get a skirt out of it.  I’m thinking after chopping the bottom off for a skirt, I can maybe join the top to something else for a dress…

Now this was just like a huge tent.  Although it’s not really clear here, there are silver threads running through the black material of the dress.  The collary bit is cotton lacy type stuff (please excuse the ‘techical terms’, I’m new to all this!)  Anyway, I can’t decide if I want to break it down, or do some kind of belting in the middle, or what.  It was only £10 though.

Now we saw a variety of these around the shop in different colours and lengths (alas only in cream, brown and black, where the pictures on the label were much more exciting colours!)  The top is a sort of Jersey tube and the bottom is floaty stuff, consisting of a couple of layers.  The idea is you can roll the top down and wear it as a skirt or as a strapless dress.  As a dress, the top of the top is a bit too baggy (well, it was a couple of sizes bigger than me, so wasn’t too surprised!)  I love the skirt bit of it, but haven’t decided what to do as an overall bit.  I could add some straps, and perhaps a little decoration at the top to allow me to bring it in a bit, or I could just half the Jersey bit and keep it as a skirt and fancy it up other ways.  Regardless, it was only £11:

I’m still trying to fathom out exactly how one is meant to wear this.  As you can see on Diana, the straps are ridiculously long for it to be a dress, and yet it seems odd to have sort of braces built in.  The shirring of the upper green part is to short for it to work as a dress on me, but I just loved the colours so we shall see what happens with it…  This one was a whopping £20 ;o)

Jo wants me to leave this one as is, as she says it looks great on me just as it is.  It probably ought to look the best, as it’s the only one that’s actually my size lol  It has a fabulous skirt that really fans out, and the top is actually shirred enough to cover the top of me properly.  It was the most expensive at £30.  I may do a little accessorising, otherwise, I probably will leave it without chopping it up.

We also hit the Next sale (actually on the way to TK Maxx, but I photographed things in a different order ;o) ).  No, not at 5am (really people, are you nuts?!) but at a far more sedate 11:45 am!  I grabbed this jersey dress – not too fond of the sleeves, or the top part in general, but it was £12 and jersey’s expensive by the metre!  I’m thinking of doing another chop off the bottom and pair with something else thing here.

I also grabbed this, initally thinking it was a dress, but the straps are again so long, I’m not so sure!  Although the straps here are just tied in a bow, so maybe it was just how they were tied here…  Anywat, the bottom is broderie anglaise, and has a couple of pockets, and I think it might be nice just as a skirt, but again we’ll see.  Unlike in TK Maxx, I couldn’t try these two on, because of the rules of the opening day of the sale, so I’ll try them on later – they fit Diana fine, so they should fit me too (assuming no-one’s altered her settings!)

I had forgotten that I also went to the Gap sale at the beginning of the week.  I’d been after a cardi for a while, and this fitted the bill at £6.  It’s a very light cotton, and very soft.

This was my bargain of the entire sales at £5.  Yep, only £5, and there’s miles of material in it!  It should have been £10, but the zip seemed to be broken, as we couldn’t get it open, so the guy half priced it again for me (I think originally it was around £50 or so).  I know the top of this will not suit me at all the way it is right now, as it’s too low cut, and the cups are probably a bit small, however having got the zip to work (it just has a couple of teeth that had unzipped themselves in the middle it turned out, and I wiggled that all out in about 2 minutes flat when I took it out of the bag)  I’ll see what I can do to alter the top to allow it to stay as a dress before we go for the more radical surgery of chopping the top off:

I also picked up these vest tops at £2 each, but I’m not sure what I’ll do with them yet.  There’s a good chance they’ll get combined with something else.