Skip to main content

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.

Comments

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 :)

Popular posts from this blog

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.

Downsizing

This was my fabric stash once I sorted everything -- 22 full bins. I spent a day taking out and boxing up what I could part with, with the goal of trying to reduce it by half, so I'd have 11 bins. I was very strict with myself, and removed everything that for one reason or another I was sure I wouldn't be able to use. This is what I ended up with -- 12 bins of fabric that I'm keeping. It's not quite half, but close enough. Half of what I took out went to a local quilter friend, a school and Goodwill. These four tightly-packed bins will be going to the local quilting guild once I make arrangements with them for a drop-off place. I am relieved and a little sad and now determined to control my impulses to thrift more fabric. I don't want to do this again, so until I use up six bins, I can't for any reason bring any new fabric into the house.

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...