monkeysocks learns to sew: Thrifted finds

I know, being British I ought to say charity shops finds, but it just doesn't sound as good somehow..

I haven't made much of late, due to uni, but I have managed to snap up a good deal of stuff from charity shops. A lot of these came from my attempts to find a wife beater and combats for the Ripley costume, which was highly difficult. The shops were proving their traditional "the shops never have the thing you want, no matter what that is" contrariness well, usually full of shapeless 90s clothes and hideousness, the moment I wanted that they were suddenly full of cute stuff! I coped somehow though, mainly by buying lots of things!

Firstly however, several months ago I had a huge binge in some charity shops I don't normally go to a little further away from my flat. I was mainly after some glass/home wares, but a lot of other stuff sort of crept in. As it was a while ago I have forgotten some of the stuff I got, and I got a lot of shapeless cotton tops that hopefully will get refashioned one day so I will not show them here, but a few select pieces make me very happy.

This skirt should have made me very sad, as it is a size 16, and I bought it to cut it down a size or so, but when I put it on it fit perfectly- ooops! Never mind, the potential sadness of being fatter than I thought, at least in the eyes of its makers, was completely offset by the jolliness of it. Sorry about the creases - I took it out of the washing basket for the photo. I have have worn this at least once a week since I got it! It is awesome! the photo doesn't really do justice to the rich purplely blue colour. I was wearing it in when I met Debi, and that picture suggest a bit at the brightness of the colour.

At the same time I found this stripey cardigan. As you may remember I had been moaning that I didn't really own any tops that were patterned, especially knitwear, and this fits the bill all round.

I also spotted some nice bedlinen that could be made into clothes. This duvet and pillowcases is primrose yellow and pale cream and is large gingham on one side and stripey on the other! I haven't decided what to make of this yet, but it seems to be crying out for something that uses both patterns.

I also scored a massive duvet and pillow cases in this lovely foliage/flowery pattern. The colours are a little brighter in real life. It's a bit grannyesque but in quite a fun way. I have a cute 70s dress pattern with a wide collar and short gored skirt that might look very nice in this. I have also been toying with the idea of dying it, but I haven't decided.

In my more recent Ripley splurge, I picked up this incredibly soft cotton duvet in white cotton with slightly satiny contrast stripes. Not got any immediate plans for this, and it will almost certainly get dyed as I don't really wear white - I am far to prone to spilling things on myself.

I also got this duvet in two tones of bright pink! I do love bright colours, and I never get round to buying bright plain fabric.

In a special lesson in really rummaging in the linen sections and not just giving everything a cursory look, I glanced at this duvet, which has little trees printed on it, and wasn't sure, but then I picked it up and looked further and realised it was a border print! This is just screaming to be a pretty full skirted dress!