Creative juice with no money

In the old days, you know when I was growing up...it was cheaper to make your own clothes. Cheaper to knit a blanket (although I do remember it was acrylic - shudder) and I had very mixed feelings about that.

My mom was a seamstress. My sister and I wore matching dresses for years as 1 year apart toddlers. By the time I was in first grade, my sister in kindergarten and my brother 4 she stopped making those giant frilly dresses. Similar to these only with a whole lotta organza or tulle underneath so they practically stood at right angles from your body.



Pretty soon we had play clothes that were shorts and little simple tops instead.

We didn't have a lot of money. If my dad went to the PX we got name brand canned food. Ooooooooo! "If you've got libbys libbys libbys on your table table table
You will like it like it like it - if your able able able
When you've got libbys libbys libbys on yourr table table table"

We were treated to McDonalds after church...maybe. Not always but sometimes. Sometimes we (me and my sister) went to the Plaza with my mom and she treated us to a Der Weinerschnitzel hot dog. The hot dog was not as fascinating as the sparkly bits of something in the pavement at the Plaza. I loved shopping there because of the sparkly floors.

These are things I remember as I try to figure out cheaper ways to do things. Like make things. But what I've found is it's NOT cheaper to make things.

Yarn, OMG, expensive. $25.00 hanks and you need 4 of them. So a cool 100.00 to make a sweater. Hello Target? I recently got a all cotton knit turtleneck with cables for $7.98, on sale. No, it was $6.24!

Plain cotton print fabric at Joannes? 9.99 dollars a yard. I mean, look at this link. So lets say a yard and a half for a button down shirt. Fabric: 14.50. Thread: 2.95, 6 buttons: 6.00 for 2 packages of 3. We're at about 24.00 right now. Not including interfacing, not including a few hours making it and for gawds sake the pattern: Vogue shirt pattern 20.00, on sale for 16.00!

40.00 for a shirt. A shirt I can buy for probably 15.00 at Sears, Pennys, Kohls.

I wanted to make an apron for a 12 year old chef in training. I DID buy the fabric, cost me close to 20.00 for just the fabric. No notions. I can figure out my own pattern on this one.

Sometimes I stop in at Goodwill. Mostly to see if there are wool sweaters for cheap. I've found some when I was on my make felted purses kick. Now that was a deal. Too bad they're usually mens sweaters and are too large to wear and too small if you felt them.

But I LOVE making things. Hard to keep me from doing something that entails me creating something. I'm just going to have to get more creative on on how I obtain those things. I wish that yarn store down the street wasn't so danged expensive.