The Thrifting Way

Six months ago I began seriously thrifting, focusing first on fabric from local shops and online auction sites. I never expected to find what I did, and it changed my attitude toward thrifting a lot.

Nine lbs. of quilting panels from a bag I thought was just random fabric taught me that there are all kinds of surprises in store for the thrifting maker.

I was pretty stunned by the quality of much of the antique linens I thrifted, too. This is hand stitching history.

Then I started seeing how I could thrift almost anything I needed, like this $70.00 jacket that still had the tags on for less than ten bucks.

Yarn that was too expensive at the craft stores suddenly became affordable via thrifting.

So did journals.

I even found some treasures among the fakes.

Thrifting didn't always pan out in my favor, like one of the online auction quilts I bought that shredded from dry rot as soon as I washed it. That taught me that you can't judge condition by a photograph, and thrifting will always be a little bit of a gamble. But I seem to have a good eye for things that are real bargains, and a pretty good streak of luck going.

I don't expect everyone to do as I did in 2023, but I hope you will consider thrifting something instead of buying new. Even if it's just a flower vase or a picture frame, you'll save money and keep useful things out of landfills. That's always good.

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Other Stashes

Along with clearing out the spare bedroom and tidying my office and our guest bedroom, I decided to reorganize some of my stashes. This is all the yarn I have on hand, sorted by color. It looks like a lot, but lately I've been using up a minimum of half a bin every month, so this is approximately a year's supply. All of my solid color cotton perle thread. I go through a lot of this every year, too. I need a container in which I can fit all of it together, but I haven't found the right one yet. I won't show you all of my fabric -- I'm still reorganizing this stash -- but I went through everything and donated two bins of fabric I won't need to the local quilter's guild.

Love Means This

Invested in a couple of hand-dyed bundles from one of my favorite fabric artists. This one said "Make me into something for Valentine's Day." So I went for a quilted and embellished tote. I kept thinking about what love means to me as I worked on it. Here's the finished tote. Although I was tempted to embellish with beads and pins, I got sick and only felt well enough to do a little stitching every night. As I worked I thought about how often love seems disappointing to us, especially when it fails to live up to our expectations. But now that I've experienced love in many forms, I can say that it's made me a better person than I might have been without it. Love is a precious thing, and should be appreciated in all its forms. I am very grateful for the love of my guy, my child and my friends who have stuck with me all these years. That's you two, in case you're wondering. :) Also finally found something to do with a ve...

Store Closing Haul

The mega Books-A-Million store over in Sanford is closing, and offered an extra 20% off on their current stock -- all sales final -- so I went over to do some shopping. Safely but sadly there was no one in the store but me the entire time I was there. The Holly Jackson novel is for Katherine, the Halloween board book is for Oliver, and the copy of Garden Spells is to keep on hand because I give that book to everyone. The rest of the books are for me. I love Anne Cleeves, and the Galbraith novel sounded interesting (the first couple weren't, but I'm willing to take another chance.) The Escape Room is by a new-to-me author, plus it was cheap. The GreenCraft mag is just a guilty pleasure. Hopefully the smaller BAM nearer to me won't close. I don't buy many books from brick-and-mortar stores these days, but that's really the last one within reasonable driving distance.

Valerean

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