Valerean

As I mentioned yesterday, I'm playing another round of wannabuts (things I want to thrift but only for the minimum price) on three different quilts at ShopGoodwill.com which I would like to repair, refurbish and add to my collection. This scrappy quilt reminded me of one my mother owned; did I win the quilt? Yep, I got it for $7.99 with no challengers. This row by row outdoors themed quilt needs some repairs, but I was outbid right away on it. The winning bid went for $20.00, which was a bit much considering how much damage there is to be fixed. I collect double wedding ring quilts, but I don't have a green and white one. The bidding for this ended up in a last minute sniper-fest, in which I did not participate, and the winning bid ended up being $21.00. One out of three isn't a bad outcome, and I'm happy with the quilt I did win. Stay tuned to see what it looks like when it arrives.

It's time for another game of things I want to thrift but only for the minimum bid, the finished quilt edition. I have bid on three different quilts at ShopGoodwill.com which I would like to repair, refurbish and add to my collection, but only if I get them cheap. This scrappy quilt reminded me of one my mother owned and had me repair constantly; a friend of hers had made it out of polyester clothing fabric. I don't know what happened to Mom's (my siblings probably sold it) but I'd like to have this one as a reminder of her. This row by row outdoors themed quilt needs some repairs, especially around the raw edged applique pieces. I like the outdoors and I wouldn't mind saving it. I collect double wedding ring quilts, but I don't have a green and white one. This looks pretty old, and may need some minor repairs. Will I win it or the other two? Stay tuned to the blog to find out.

My guy and I were cruising a favorite antique mall back in January when I spotted these bags of perle embroidery thread. They're Anchor, DMC and more than a few Finca (and one very big surprise), and most of them were barely used. Every bag had been marked "bowl filler." I couldn't believe expensive embroidery thread would be used to fill bowls, and I kind of had to save it. Epecially seeing as I only have a couple balls of DMC because it costs so much (like $3.50 to $5.00 for one ball. A set of six can run up to $30.00.) I've also been looking in thrift stores for perle thread because it is so expensive. Here are the 33 balls out of the bags. They're in mint condition. What you're looking at here is Valdani variegated perle thread, aka the big surprise, which runs about $6.00 per ball. That's also why I never buy this brand: because it's so freaking expensive. Just these six are worth $36.00. If you add the other 27 at $3...

I'm pulling together materials for several spring projects, including some fat quarters I found at the Dollar Tree. They're bright and pretty, and quite colorful, which hopefully inspires me to step outside my November beachy comfort zone. I've never worked with proper faux fur, only Minky, so I thought I'd also try to sew some bunnies from these Dollar Tree squares. Finally I've put together the background fabric and embroidery thread pallete for my vintage linens quilt. The fabric is actually European linen scraps from a sheet maker that sells their manufacturing trimmings, which I already used in two linen quilts in the past. It's really dreamy stuff.

Back in January I realized I was thinking about the beach all the time while I was working on my projects. Nothing soothes me like the seaside, so that's why I picked out sea, surf and sand colors for my crochet blanket. When I improv'ed a landscape for my third mini-quilt, naturally I thought of sunrise on the beach. Repeating symbols often crop in any any artist's work. M.C. Escher spent his career working out the principles of tessellation. Keith Haring used interlocking bodies in his street art. Dali used melting clocks, ants, crutches and elephants to symbolize different aspects and ideas he wanted to communicate. I know why the beach keeps showing up in my art. It was a place of sanctuary for me as a child. When I was at the beach I was in my own church, and no one knew. That was where I communed with the universe instead of sitting on a hard wood bench being lectured to in Latin. Because I still feel so safe there, I am never as much myself as I...

I thrifted a lot of tops, nearly all of which are new with tags, which arrived last month. This is Banana Republic. $49.99 for one blouse. Boggles the mind. If you want to see what else came in the lot, go to my album here. Not everything came with price tags, but from experience I can tell you this is about $500.00 in new clothes. I paid $19.99 for the lot, or $1.99 for each top.

I wanted some dress making fabric with which to practice pattern sewing, and saw a lot of nice looking yardage in this lot, which I thought might be mostly polyester or linings. Anyway, I bid on and won with one one challenger who gave up almost at once. This huge, heavy box arrived a week later, and as soon as I lifted it I thought, "Uh-oh." The memory of that gigantic lot of quilting fabric I got for pennies came back to me. It's not 103.5 yards of fabric like that other lot. It's 64.5 yards. I was right in that it most definitely is dress making fabric: mostly gown-quality silks, silk charmeuse and heavy satins. The five yards of navy blue silk charmeuse by itself is worth around $150.00. The satins are the high-quality type that can run as much as $80.00 a yard. Conservatively I think the lot is worth somewhere in the neighborhood of a thousand dollars. I bought it for $13.00, or about twenty cents a yard. Image credit: the first pic in thi...

For my first mini-quilt of February for my 2025 calendar project I wrote a love letter to my guy and put it in this envelope, which I made from an old embroidered linen doily. I'm embroidering the writing on the love letter, but it's not finished due to a bad arthritis flare-up. I'll finish that when my hands calm down. I finished my colorblock Ocean Tranquility crochet throw, which helped me so much, and (at least to me) turned out lovely. Highly recommend this free pattern . My second mini-quilt of February was a simple embroidery and bead affair as I worked on my dexterity and finger control. In memory of my mom I cleaned and repaired Survivor, a vintage polyester diagonal strip quilt that I thrifted for $7.99. For my third mini-quilt of February I used treads, buttons and a crystal heart to work through some heartbreak. I repaired the handles on a thrifted Vera Bradley tote bag. My fourth mini-quilt of February has an embroidered pocket in wh...

Since I finished last year's calendar mood blanket I miss crocheting it, and my fingers have grown stiffer without the daily exercise. To deal with that I decided to look around for a simple pattern to make a throw. I liked the look of this Ocean Tranquility blanket designed by Anastacia Zittel, plus it was free, so I downloaded and printed out the pattern. I decided on a sand, foam and sea colored palette, and pulled some yarn from my stash. I may add or substract skeins as I make the throw. I managed three and a half rows of the largest size throw in the pattern in one evening, so it is pretty simple and easy to work up. It's also nice not to have to restrict myself to one row per day like last year; working on it as much as I like helps exercise my fingers. Stay tuned to see how it turns out.

Thanks to my arthritis I have trouble some mornings working the clasps of the bracelets I wear to remind me which hand is weaker that day (see what people with arthritis do as hacks?), so I decided to invest in some with elastic that just slip on. I found this lot at ShopGoodwill.com. I have one jasper beaded bracelet just like the beaded ones that I like a lot. I bid on them for the minimum and won the lot with no challengers. Here's the bundle when it arrived; let's see how they look. Nicer in person, really, with nice quality semi-precious stone beads. I've bought bracelets like these for myself and my favorite person, and they run about $5 to $10 each. This lot of ten cost me $14.99, which works out to $1.49 each. Very good deal. Image credit: the first pic in this post came from the auction listing at ShopGoodwill.com.

While at the Dollar Store last month I noticed some new fat qaurters in the craft section that were very much like Minky. I liked the solids and cute animal novelty prints they had available, too. So I decided to get four to make some pillows. The plush fabric is thin but super soft. You need to pin these down a lot to keep them from shifting, but the amount of fluff that came off them during trimming and sewing was (unlike actual Minky) very minimal. They made up into two cute pillows that will be nice when I need to take a break or a nap. By using the solid color pieces as backing I made them reversible. This is an economical project, as Minky runs about $14.00 per yard these days. I made these two pillows with a yard total of Dollar Store FQs, and thread and poly-fil that I had on hand, for five bucks.

Sunshine of My Life is a long series that features a lot of unusual elements: a not particularly handsome male lead, a fashion industry story set in France and China, a female lead who is probably the most unattractive female in the cast, and secondary characters who tried to steal every scene they were in (and often succeeded.) The less than perfect leads convinced me to give the first episode a watch, and then I got hooked by everything else and watched the remaining 44 episodes. I'd call this more of a saga than a series, with multiple plot lines, a pretty extensive cast and excellent showcasing of the Chinese fashion industry. The storyline revolves around Tang Ming Xuan (Zhang Han), the heir to and manager of Ming Yuan Fashion Group, who is entirely career-focused. He collides with Mo Fei (Xu Lu), a postgraduate fashion design student about to head over to France. I love the timing of their meeting, as it's the ultimate monkey wrench to romance. Despite their i...

I'm in the process of making the second mini-quilt for my 2025 calendar project, and once again I have so much respect for quilters and sewists who do needle-turned applique. This one little bunny near about drove me crazy trying to sew it to my mini. This improvised piece has been slowly developing over the last week, and I have one last addition to the tableau before I call it done. I'm going to embroider 자신을 사랑하세요 on the right side, which in English means love yourself. I printed out the words in a large font so I could reference them while stitching, and used a disappearing marker to write them character by character on the piece to give myself embroidery lines. Then it's just a matter of back stitching all the lines. Here's the final mini-quilt. Since 2023 (the year of the rabbit in the Chinese zodiac) I've been quietly working on ways to be kind to and love myself instead of depending on kindness and love from others. These calendar project...

This is that lot of yarn I thrifted for $7.99 locally. I was particularly interested in the variegated yarns, which I can work up into pretty baskets. I needed to exercise my fingers, so I went right to work on the basket I wanted to make. That was a good thing, because I had to deal with some family drama that was completely unnecessary and made me very angry. That's also why my one-week project only took two days. There wasn't enough of the variegated yarn to make the entire project, so I finished it off with a coordinating white top. I used six skeins of thrifted yarn to make the basket, but more importantly, by crocheting I was able to channel my anger in a positive, non-harmful way. I'm still angry, but my emotions are finally settling down. I also have more flexible fingers now as well, so it was a win all the way around for me.

Back in January I went thrifting for some variegated yarn, and found this bag at our local Goodwill. Everything looked clean, and there were several variegated skeins, so I brought it home. They packed a lot into that little bag, too: eleven skeins of acrylic yarn in total. Since they are clean and have no odor I'd price each at $3.00 resale, which is $33.00 total. I paid $7.99 for the whole bundle, which works out to about .73 per skein. You can't buy yarn at the dollar store that cheap.