Seek and Ye Might Find

Sometimes I go on treasure hunts while thrifting and find the occasional surprise, especially in the art category. This is a watercolor painting listed only as by Sedel currently on auction at Goodwill.com; bidding at the moment stands at $20.00 plus shipping.* A few seconds of research turned up art by Reita Sedel that looks remarkably similar to the one I found (just for almost ten times that price.) So you never know what you're going to find.

(And why didn't I bid on it, you may ask? I don't especially like the artist's style. Kinda creepy.)

In the sewing category I noticed two mid 20th century sewing books for sale; one was this handmade, handwritten and handsketched sewing samples book. Finding things like this is like taking a trip through the time tunnel; it's utterly charming. But the listing doesn't show if the entire book was filled, and I think the starting bid price of $29.97 (with no takers as of yet) was a bit high.

This lot of 30+ quilt blocks looks fairly contemporary, and from what I can see the blocks are well made. I use orphan patchwork to make lots of things, too. That's why I placed the minimum bid of $9.99 on them (which believe me, is a steal.) If I win the lot I'll do a separate post on them when they arrive (alas, lost this one in a down-to-the-wire bidding battle with a last-minute sniper.)

This is another original painting that I bid on, a watercolor by Byron Rodarmel, who noted on the back a copyright date and the reserve of reproductive rights. That shrieks professional artist, so I did a little research. Apparently the artist worked in the movie industry in animation on a few films. I didn't care so much about that as the subject matter of the painting, which is a quilt show. I also love watercolors. I had no competition for it and won the auction for the minimum bid of $14.95. I'll guess the painting is worth ten times that.

*This painting ended up selling for $32.11.

Image Credit: all the images in this post were taken from the original auction listings on ShopGoodwill.com.

T-minus Day

This was our little Thanksgiving dinner last year, when it was just the three of us. Time keeps whittling down my favorite holiday; this year it will be just me and my guy, and we likely won't even have a turkey.* That will be a first in 35 years. I feel about Thanksgiving the way other people do about Christmas, and while it's a lot of work it's my favorite holiday. Of all the Thanksgivings I've had in the past sixty years, only three were truly terrible: one when I was a kid that I don't talk about (#1 most miserable); the time I roasted two turkeys together and hosted fifteen people whom I cooked for and served with zero help (the largest and #2 most miserable); and the one I spent in basic training (the #3 most miserable.) I have no pictures of any of those, thank heavens. In addition to doing all the cooking I'm the one who takes all the pictures, washes all the dishes and puts away all the leftovers. I suppose no one else cares because to them it...

Fell Off the Wagon

I did cut up that plastic dollar tote to make into something stronger, but got caught up with work and set it aside. Then last night some hand-dyed silk and pretty threads called my name, and, well . . . Felt SO good to do some handwork, except my neck began hurting about an hour into it. I tried changing the way I sit and work, but it's pretty obvious that the doc is right.

Old Loves & Such

My guy kindly bought me my favorite Chinese take out the other night, and my fortune cookie offered up an interesting story starter: This sounds sweet, right? Only the first thing I thought of was an old love coming back from the dead . . . . must be October. In other lovely news, my favorite hand-dyed thread artist, Lorraine from Colour Complements , is moving her business from Etsy to her own web site. Many of my favorite sellers on Etsy are leaving due to the whole "free shipping" coercion debacle, which has also soured me on the site. To show support I did a little shopping at Lorraine's web site and got in these: I love her threads and trims; you simply can't buy anything like them anywhere. Her work makes my specialty thread box look like a treasure chest: At night I'm spending just as hour working on quilting the scrap project runner, and I'm making slow progress: I'll keep quilting the runner while I try to decide on a design for t...

nightsmusic said…

I don't know if that first picture is creepy but it's definitely not my style though the price is definitely a steal. I like the one with the quilt very much. I have four costume sketches from the 2004 movie, Phantom of the Opera, that hang on my wall over where my baby grand used to sit. I won them at the after movie auction. They weren't expensive because they weren't primary sketches. I'm not sure that they're worth much more than they were then, but I like them :)

January 7, 2024 at 4:49 AM

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