Skip to main content

The Why of Thrift

This is a sock lot I thrifted for $7.99. There are 57 pair of socks (plus a nice pair of slippers that I forgot to put in for the pic) and they're all brand new, never worn. That's fourteen cents a pair, which is the best price I will ever pay. Because I walk several miles every day I wear out socks in a few months. Thrifting instead of paying retail just makes sense.

I don't often buy vintage quilts in need of repair, but the $7.99 I bid on this old beauty and the very minimal damage made it a painless purchase. Yes, it's made of mostly polyester, and it will never win any awards. It's not about that. It made me happy to acquire a quilt like the one I spent many years repairing for Mom.

I needed some new notebooks; thrifting got me this lot of eight for $7.99. That's cheaper than the dollar store, and I kept these eight from ending up in a landfill.

Not everyone likes to thrift, and I get that. You don't know where it's been, and it might seem squicky. But my socks are brand new, and my notebooks are just as nice and useful as anything I could buy retail. I think all old quilts deserve to be preserved and reused, even the ones that aren't especially valuable. That I didn't have to pay through the nose for any of the above is just an extra bonus.

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

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.
Post a Comment
Read more

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.
Post a Comment
Read more

In Progress

I promised myself I would show you the good, bad and ugly of my cleaning this year. This is what it looks like when you dump thirty years' worth of stashed fabric on the floor -- and oy, what a pain in the butt to pick up again! This is what it looks like after it's been sorted, folded and placed in containers, which took me about a week. Now the hard part is to downsize my stash by at least half, I think (that's my goal, anyway.) I've already e-mailed the president of the local quilting guild, a local friend who is a quilter, and a public school art teacher I know to see if I can donate some of the excess to them. The rest will go to Goodwill. Already I've reduced my vintage textiles from two bins to one, and my scraps from three bins to one. It's probably the hardest clean-out I've done, which is why I saved it until last. I know I have too much fabric, more than I can use in my lifetime -- but at the same time, I love it. So I have to...
Post a Comment
Read more