The Sew Weekly's Lace & Notions Exchange

I am not the most active member of The Sew Weekly, but I love the concept. A new sewing project every week? That's the kind of productivity I'm hoping to get to. Once I figure out where all of my actual time is going. 

Mena Trott, the woman who started The Sew Weekly (and also was a co-founder of Six Apart and has done some pretty amazing things in her non-sewing career), started a project called the Common Thread Project in which she sent various seamstresses pieces of the same kind of lace with which to make something.  The projects already completed are impressive, and I think it has been quite the hit. So much so, that one of the members of Sew Weekly's Sewing Circle, Kat, had asked if the Sew Weekly community would be up for an exchange of notions too. 

Needless to say, I signed up right away. I don't have much of a stash, though, which was perhaps poor planning on my part. Join a notions exchange when I don't have many notions. But, I was excited to share. 

I'd show you what I sent, but it seems that my package still hasn't arrived at the doorstep of the person I was assigned. :( Super sad. I've offered to send her a new package, but I haven't heard from her yet. Super super sad. 

If I can send her another package, I will be working hard on making it spectacular too. I mean, look at what I received:

Vintage buttons, multiple zippers, lace upon lace upon lace, ric rac, ribbon, a homemade pincushion (yes!!!), a homemade flower pin, an Australia magnet (she's from Australia). Oh my. I almost cried when I got this. So. Amazing.

I have a lot of ideas jumping around for these notions, but I have managed to make one (and a half) pieces using my gifts. I may have stated this before, but I often choose fabrics by touch, rather than by any knowledge of their uses. My cousin and I found incredibly soft brown jersey pillow cases at the Goodwill recently, and I'd been trying to decide what to make with it. When I got Debbie's notions, I was immediately drawn to using the orange and cream trim. It seemed a perfect match with the chocolate brown of the jersey.

I had a costume I had to make for a festival, and the combo of these two new members of my stash seemed just right. I had a little extra trim too, so was able to make a choker. I sewed two orange ribbons on each side, and finished the edges of the trim. I'll probably run some FrayCheck on it though, as the cut edges seem to unravel quickly.

I am contemplating adding an insert of lace at the top, since the top shows a good deal off when worn alone. But I may just wear it with different shirts to play with the look some more. As I think on it, I have a nice green cowl neck shirt that would match very well. Yay for flexible wardrobe pieces!

As mentioned in the last post, I also have another use for the lace Debbie provided. I am hoping to use the wide white eyelet lace trim on the ties of my Crepe dress. I'll post pictures when it's completed.

In the meantime, I have to hatch a way of getting notions to my assigned recipient. Traveling notions go slow when they have to get across oceans, I suppose. (Still sad.)

(And for those of you that may have seen this early, i.e., before May 18th, my apologies. I scheduled the post for the wrong month!)