Worth it or Not? Results

The Nike sneakers I thrifted for $12.99 arrived in pristine mint condition, with no wear marks or odor. They are very well made shoes and fit my guy perfectly. I think they were a display pair; I found a tiny scuff mark on one of the soles that suggested someone had maybe tried them on and walked around the store with them, but that's all. I can see someone paying $80.00 for them as they are now. Because new namebrand men's sneakers are so rare to be able to thrift, much less at the minimum bid, plus it took me months to find them, I'm going to call this my thrift of the year.

The lot of Vera Bradley bags I thrifted for $9.99 proved to be in much better shape than suggested by the listing title (some stains and rips were mentioned.) I found some stains on the inside of one tote that barely show on the outside, and a single rip in the outer pocket of the big duffel bag that is an easy fix for me. The rest are in very good condition, with three in what I'd call unused condition. To my delight one of the bags that I assumed was a purse actually turned out to be an insulated, plastic-lined lunch bag.

Now here's why thrifting pays: I looked up the prices of what it would cost to buy these bags (three are evidently retired patterns and one is rare.) The total retail to buy all of them used -- yes, used -- is $307.90. Vera Bradley is pretty pricey, so I don't even want to think about what they cost new. I will be doing a post in the new future about cleaning, repairing and reusing this lot, so stay tuned to the blog for that.

The lot of eight quilting and craft books I thrifted with no challengers arrived in very good to mint condition, and will add greatly to my reading pleasure this fall. I can't tell you how many times I've almost bought The Quilter's Bible new; I just couldn't pay thirty dollars for a quilting book. Anyway I looked at all the prices on the books and they totalled $174.72. At half price for used book resale they would cost $87.36. I paid $9.99 for all eight.

The savings by thrifting was wonderful, but what makes me confident all three of these listings were worth every penny of the minimum bids I won them for is simply the happiness they delivered. My guy has new sneakers, I have new purses and more books to read, and all of it won't be dumped in a landfill. It doesn't get any better than that.

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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.

Goodwill Gamble #2 Arrives

My second Goodwill gamble arrived; this is one I paid ten bucks for last month. Just inside the lid was a big roll of plastic mesh that I think is for latchhook work. In the auction listing it looked like fabric to me, so that was unexpected. Someone at the seller's end was nice enough to put a note on this pinned fabric. I'll put on my gloves before I take it out to inspect it. The embroidered green fabric turned out to be 1-1/2 yards of sequinned and three-dimensional designer fabric. I'll guess this cost somewhere between $20.00 to $30.00 a yard, and it's in pristine condition. But here's a shot of everything in the lot, which is mostly crafty odds and ends with a small amount of cotton fabrics, a large amount of synethetic fabrics, and some other surprises. The original owner of these was probably a Catholic school teacher; these beads, crosses and medallions are the kind of rosary kits for kids to make at Sunday school or Bible camp (and s...

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...

Valerean

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