Valerean

It's time for another game of things I want to thrift but only for the minimum bid, the finished quilt edition. I have bid on three different quilts at ShopGoodwill.com which I would like to repair, refurbish and add to my collection, but only if I get them cheap. This scrappy quilt reminded me of one my mother owned and had me repair constantly; a friend of hers had made it out of polyester clothing fabric. I don't know what happened to Mom's (my siblings probably sold it) but I'd like to have this one as a reminder of her. This row by row outdoors themed quilt needs some repairs, especially around the raw edged applique pieces. I like the outdoors and I wouldn't mind saving it. I collect double wedding ring quilts, but I don't have a green and white one. This looks pretty old, and may need some minor repairs. Will I win it or the other two? Stay tuned to the blog to find out.

My guy and I were cruising a favorite antique mall back in January when I spotted these bags of perle embroidery thread. They're Anchor, DMC and more than a few Finca (and one very big surprise), and most of them were barely used. Every bag had been marked "bowl filler." I couldn't believe expensive embroidery thread would be used to fill bowls, and I kind of had to save it. Epecially seeing as I only have a couple balls of DMC because it costs so much (like $3.50 to $5.00 for one ball. A set of six can run up to $30.00.) I've also been looking in thrift stores for perle thread because it is so expensive. Here are the 33 balls out of the bags. They're in mint condition. What you're looking at here is Valdani variegated perle thread, aka the big surprise, which runs about $6.00 per ball. That's also why I never buy this brand: because it's so freaking expensive. Just these six are worth $36.00. If you add the other 27 at $3...

I'm pulling together materials for several spring projects, including some fat quarters I found at the Dollar Tree. They're bright and pretty, and quite colorful, which hopefully inspires me to step outside my November beachy comfort zone. I've never worked with proper faux fur, only Minky, so I thought I'd also try to sew some bunnies from these Dollar Tree squares. Finally I've put together the background fabric and embroidery thread pallete for my vintage linens quilt. The fabric is actually European linen scraps from a sheet maker that sells their manufacturing trimmings, which I already used in two linen quilts in the past. It's really dreamy stuff.

Back in January I realized I was thinking about the beach all the time while I was working on my projects. Nothing soothes me like the seaside, so that's why I picked out sea, surf and sand colors for my crochet blanket. When I improv'ed a landscape for my third mini-quilt, naturally I thought of sunrise on the beach. Repeating symbols often crop in any any artist's work. M.C. Escher spent his career working out the principles of tessellation. Keith Haring used interlocking bodies in his street art. Dali used melting clocks, ants, crutches and elephants to symbolize different aspects and ideas he wanted to communicate. I know why the beach keeps showing up in my art. It was a place of sanctuary for me as a child. When I was at the beach I was in my own church, and no one knew. That was where I communed with the universe instead of sitting on a hard wood bench being lectured to in Latin. Because I still feel so safe there, I am never as much myself as I...

I thrifted a lot of tops, nearly all of which are new with tags, which arrived last month. This is Banana Republic. $49.99 for one blouse. Boggles the mind. If you want to see what else came in the lot, go to my album here. Not everything came with price tags, but from experience I can tell you this is about $500.00 in new clothes. I paid $19.99 for the lot, or $1.99 for each top.

I wanted some dress making fabric with which to practice pattern sewing, and saw a lot of nice looking yardage in this lot, which I thought might be mostly polyester or linings. Anyway, I bid on and won with one one challenger who gave up almost at once. This huge, heavy box arrived a week later, and as soon as I lifted it I thought, "Uh-oh." The memory of that gigantic lot of quilting fabric I got for pennies came back to me. It's not 103.5 yards of fabric like that other lot. It's 64.5 yards. I was right in that it most definitely is dress making fabric: mostly gown-quality silks, silk charmeuse and heavy satins. The five yards of navy blue silk charmeuse by itself is worth around $150.00. The satins are the high-quality type that can run as much as $80.00 a yard. Conservatively I think the lot is worth somewhere in the neighborhood of a thousand dollars. I bought it for $13.00, or about twenty cents a yard. Image credit: the first pic in thi...