Florida Fabric Finds

I'm back from a wonderful winter break. We took a month long drive to Florida and back so blogging and my Etsy shop have been idle. If you are at at interested you can see the whole trip on my travel blog HERE.

If only fabrics and sewing are your cup of tea stay right here to see the stuff I found during the month away from snowbound Ohio.

                                                                    The first find was in an antique/home decor shop in Beaufort, South Carolina.

I bought two tablecloths in Beaufort. One is a linen-like fabric and the other is a typical tablecloth pattern in an untypical color. I often use sheets and tablecloths for fabric. The linen will make really nice pillows and perhaps a bag of some sort. I hope my TAP paper transfers work on it.

 The polka dot and print were found in a shop in Fernandina Beach, Amelia Island, FL. 

Great stuff at $3 a yard.

The shop had a bird but he's hard to see in the photo.

The next find is not fabric but a huge amount of grosgrain ribbon. We were at a fancy shopping mall in Orlando and the Saks Fifth Ave. was closing. Never shop in such stores ordinarily but this looked like something I could handle. They were down to the fixtures and this ribbon and red elastic ropey stuff.
I got it all for $15 and the wide black ribbon is pretty much a complete roll. I was told they used it in the alterations department.

On the trip home we stopped in Asheville, North Carolina to tour the famous Biltmore Estate. Asheville has lots of antique stores and an 82 year old "fine fabric" store that is GOING OUT OF BUSINESS!
Had to get to that, but found most had been picked over for about 3 weeks. I won't name it since not much here and the women working there were VERY reluctant to wait on me. I guess they were too busy going out of business. I did pick these up at 33% off which wasn't that good a deal.

I love the optical illusion on this. 

 Not so sure about this one.

Bought interesting big buttons to use as bag closures

 and the ribbon and jumbo rick-rack below.

One of the many antique places we walked through specialized in mid century modern and had bolt end for $15 each. I picked up two

.

 I like both sides of this one

I think this would make great pillows.

A few new thimbles were also picked up along the way for the collection. I really have to get a count on those things.

Do you ever find fabrics in unexpected places?