My sewing space & some garage sale finds

We bought this house in 2006 from my grandfather, who had it listed for sale.  He expressed his desire that it remain in the family since he had owned it from the time it was built in 1968.  My husband and I were looking for our first home at that time, and although it wouldn't have been our first choice, we bought it.  My grandfather passed away a year later.  

The house is a little under 1500 sq ft with 3 bedrooms, so with 3 children, there is little room for a sewing space of any kind.  Thankfully, my daughter's room has a pretty large walk-in closet, so that is my headquarters.

This is taken from the doorway of the closet.  

 Up here are my books, magazines, patterns, etc.

 Here is my t.v. tray helper table currently holding materials for the Pile O'Fabric Skillbuilder BOM & the Messenger Bag Tutorial from From The Blue Chair.

Here is my fabric & yarn stash, along with pending projects & misc. items up top.

 This is the very first quilt block I made at the Joann's class I took.

 My first Scrappy Trip Around the World block.

Lint I rolled off of a Kona solids Roll-Up.  I thought it looked so pretty, so I hung up the lint sheets.

I have to keep my iron & ironing board out in my daughter's room since it would be impossible to maneuver with it in here (at least without sustaining 3rd degree burns), but she hasn't complained yet.  It isn't the most comfortable space, but I am very thankful to have it.

My church had a massive garage sale this past week and I was able to score some pretty neat stuff.  

 Vintage thread for $1.  They're all on wooden spools.  The taller spools show the original price as ".15 for 125 yds of size 50 Bel-waxed Mercerized Cotton" and it is from Belding Corticelli thread co.  It also is stamped with "Fast to Boiling."

 The other side says "Belding Corticelli, 10 yds, size D, Pure Silk Twist"  

 These were also in the thread box.  Not sure what they are, but it looks like they have some kind of heat-fusible shiny material on one side of them.

 I am not sure how old these are, but the colors are all quite vibrant and I am really pleased with this find.

 I don't know how to knit, but I hope to teach myself one day, so how could I resist?

 This was $1 also.  It looks like it's selling for upwards of $40 on etsy/ebay.

 This was .25 for about 3/4 yd.

 .50 for 3.5 yds of this red gingham, but this is not quilter's weight cotton, so this might be good for a shirt.. maybe?  Not sure yet...

 These are either canvas or cotton duck, but the beige (1.5 yds) is much heavier than the white (a little more than 1 yd).  I paid $1 for both.

 These were together in a ziplock baggy for .25.  The print (almost a yard) is a home dec weight cotton & the black (approx 1/2 yd) is just regular old quilter's cotton.

 This one was .50 for 2 yards.

And this was also .50 for 2 yards.

Finally, this flannel was $1 for 2 yds.

Unfortunately, there are no labels along the selvages on any of these fabrics, so I have no info about any of them.  I do need to share one garage sale fail, though, and this fail was pretty epic..

I washed this one (which felt just like the other cotton duck fabrics) with the other fabrics & threw in 2 Shout Color Catchers for good measure.  I had no problems with bleeding, but this one had some kind of residue or something all over it that got on everything else, so I took this one out (not noticing the shredage) and put it in the dryer and rewashed the other fabrics.  When I opened the dryer door, the whole inside was covered with this black powdery residue.  I should have taken a picture.  I had to spend a good 30 min cleaning out the dryer and lint reservoir to make it usable again.  I would love to know what kind of fabric this was, so I can avoid it like the plague in the future.

Regardless, I feel pretty happy with my purchases.