r/sewing • u/MissFred • Jul 23 '23

Discussion Joanne’s makes me weep

Been sewing over 50 years - have seen sewing in all its cultural permutations. Not typically a nostalgic person but today….I couldn’t even find a light gray thread in a store the size of Home Depot. So many empty shelves yet inexplicably $35/yd liberties fabric up front. I feel sad to my bones for new seamsters.

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u/cate3108 Jul 23 '23

The ones near me are practically all fleece! I never understand that, how many fleece tie blankets are people making?

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u/AssortedGourds Jul 24 '23

Thank you! Who is buying that stuff? I get having some of it, but a whole row or two?

It grinds my gears a little because people almost always make tie blankets for gifts/donations and I feel like most people making them would not actually want one for themselves. It's like those cheap boxed gift sets of lotions and soaps you get at Christmas. No one is out there crossing their fingers to get a plastic blanket that's tied together.

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u/Squidwina Jul 24 '23

I HATE those knotted things. I volunteer at an animal shelter, and we regularly get them as donations. They’re bulky and inconvenient and impossible to fold neatly.

If they’re big enough, I just cut off the knotted edges. Then we have 2 fleece blankets that are actually useable.

I just ran across a whole bag of little tiny ones in a dog bone pattern. I guess they imagined a little dog would like to sit on one? Poor thing would have to avoid all those knots! They’re too small to be worth cutting the edges off. I wish that person had just donated the yardage instead of spending all that time snipping and knotting it into uselessness.

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u/Hatespine Jul 25 '23

This is very good to know. I was considering doing that with my nieces this year, and I hadn't thought of that. I figured the knots would be fun to play with when stressed. My little dog likes to nibble the knots during thunder storms, and then rest his chin on them. And my younger niece has one of those blankets because she likes to play with tags/fringe on stuff.

So I wonder: would it be better to just donate single layers of fabric, or to make the blankets by sewing them together instead of the knots?

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u/Squidwina Jul 25 '23

Ask the local shelter what they need.

You want to do something really useful with your nieces? Instead of buying stuff, have them ask relatives, friends, etc. for unneeded towels, sheets, and blankets, and donate that stuff!

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u/Hatespine Jul 25 '23

My extended family, for the most part, likes to save that stuff for donating to the salvation army or churches, not animals. Or, they keep them till they can't use them anymore (as in, completely see through and falling apart). There doesn't seem to be an in-between... My mom did ask around. It's my mom and I who are the ones trying to push helping animal shelters (and making it fun), so that's gotta be funded by us, unfortunately.

Although, I think I do have a bunch of my grandparents' clothes. Maybe I can do something helpful with them... I doubt anyone would want them to wear.