Skip to main content

My Cheapness

Calling me frugal is like saying the sky is blue. I'm cheap and proud of that, mainly because I grew up poor. As an adult I learned how to get by with very little. I taught myself to make a lot of things that other people purchase. It is a lifestyle that I've never considered abandoning, even when I didn't have to live like that any longer. I refuse to forget what it's like to be poor, or behave recklessly with money.

Example of my cheapness: my guy and I were out trying to thrift some bookcases for my sewing room, and saw this quilt rack set out in a pile of "free" things at a local thrift store. I'm always on the lookout for quilt racks; I can never have too many. At the same time, I'm not willing to pay big bucks for them.

This rack was coming apart at the joints, and had a little chip in the wood, which is why I guess the folks at the thrift store thought it was trash. We asked and made sure it was free to take, brought it home and repaired it wth materials we already have on hand. It's beautiful and quite sturdy now. I smile every time I look at it. Cost: $0.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

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...

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.

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.