Tuesday 7 February 2012

Day 38: Homemade Daily Challenge. A sad little moment

You may have guessed that I am bit of a fabric fanatic. As much as I am a fan of modern new printed designs, I love the gorgeous Tilda designs in pinks and green and the retro Sanderson ranges are especially scrummy. But most of all I love using vintage fabrics. I am more of a one-off kinda gal, I really love the thought 'this piece of fabric may not exist anywhere else and I am going to make something unique from it'. When I first set up evajeanie this is what I tried to do with each piece but after a while I started to get duplicate orders for the same product and although you can explain that although each piece is lovingly made and similar fabrics can be used no two pieces will be the same. Some people 'get' that and some just don't, it can be a bit of a mine field.

So of late I have tried to purchase larger pieces of vintage fabric so I can at least make a few of anyone product and just alter the design slightly to make each piece unique (to keep with the ethos of what I set out to do). This has worked really well, until last Thursday that is.


I have in my shop a butterfly caftiere cosy I have sold all the stock (3 cosies) so that each one is now made to order and I really love this design and had intended to make one for myself but just haven't had the time of late, last Thursday I sold one in my shop and won't have enough fabric to make any more. It just felt very sad to think 'I can never make another one of those' and worse than that 'I will never own one of those' as I have little chance of finding more of the fabric again.

So although I love vintage fabrics, using them is a bit of a double edged sword. Yes the pieces are either one-off and are unique, so therefore desirable, I will only ever be able to make a few of each at most. I would love to hear if any of you have had a similar problem and if so how do you manage multiple orders for vintage fabrics?




3 comments:

Thecraftytrundler said...

Know what you mean, it's not as if you can just go out and buy another piece of it, and when you can, it may cost a fortune, even for a small piece.
Surely it's better to have something unique, rather than an exact copy of something else? It's like the old saying isn't it? "You cant please all the people all the time!!!"

Sharon xx

Doodlebags said...

I have a similar problem in that I use fabric swatches from sample books. Sometimes I'm lucky enough to 2 or more sample books the same, but so often it's just one and the pieces can be so small that I'm limited in what I can use it for. I've started using embroidery and applique on my work now just so that I can use the tiny scraps of exquisite fabric that I have.

Unknown said...

I'm glad it's not just a problem I have. I think maybe using small pieces of vintage might be a good option doodlebags, good suggestion thank you :)