The Last Chintz

Yesterday, I went out to Tai Tapu (a little village close to Christchurch) to visit Last Chintz. It's a new shop that sells "upcycled furniture" (quotes because I think the word 'upcycled' is stupid) and vintage fabrics. The furniture was gorgeous, but I was far more interested in the fabric, obviously. There was floor to ceiling shelving filled with lots of lovely, old material. I was pretty restrained and only bought two pieces.

This lovely, soft rayon is going to be turned into a 1940's style dress. It's nice and drape-y so something with gathers would be nice. The whole piece was $18 and there's about 4 metres there.

This one's a rayon too, but I think it's a crepe so it has a completely different texture. I'm not that great at dating fabrics, but it's probably quite old because it's not very wide. Fabric these days tends to be 45 inches or wider. Before the 1960's fabric usually came in widths of between 36 and 39 inches. This one's 39 inches. The print looks like the sort of novelty prints that were popular in the 1940's too. It has medieval-type coins on it. There's about 4 metres of it, and it was $6/metre.
I'm probably going to make another dress with this because, let's face it, I pretty much only make dresses. That is, if I ever get around to sewing. I'm still getting used to fitting sewing in with working full time. I used to sew pretty much every day when I was at uni, but I'm lucky if I manage to sew once a week since I started working.