Books are Good. FREE Books are Better!

Between Craigslist, Freecycle and Ravelry, I have gone from having very little fabric or sewing books....to having an impressive fabric stash and a pretty sweet sewing library. There are great items out there, just looking for a new home. You just have to keep your eyes and ears open.  The old saying, "One man's trash is another man's treasure," is so true. Here are some new-to-me treasures.

These first 4 books and the pile of fabric were Ravelry trades. For the cost of postage I was able to turn yarn and knitting books into fabric and sewing books. The fabrics are really cute. Inspired by 1930's era prints. They'll be great for quilting.

I search Craigslist many times a day and yesterday, early afternoon, I spied an ad for FREE sewing books. A huge stack. Free to the first person to inquire. Guess who was first? A quick drive to Lakewood (during which time it decided to snow like crazy) and I added these gems to the library.

Lots of helpful sewing wisdom from this familiar guru.

Books on tailoring and working with fabrics.

Another quilt book.

But the real jewel in the stack was this. 

How to make your own sewing patterns. 

Remember this cross-stitch kit I picked up at the thrift store? Remember how I commented it would be easy? Man, was I wrong. Yes, the image is stamped on the Aida cloth. But there are multiple pages of charts and stitching patterns.

It will be quite a challenge. It took me over an hour to sort through the pile of floss. And I'm still not 100% sure I have the colors matched with their names. The descriptions were rather vague and could describe more than one of the colors. I sorted them, to the best of my ability, on a piece of cardboard. Wish me luck!