Valerean

There's always some kind of taxidermy at most antique malls, which is the only thing I really don't care for. This was the only specimen at the Wildwood Antique Mall, thank goodness. I was enchanted by English tea set decorated with Alice in Wonderland motifs; it's Paul Cardew circa 2000, and highly collectible. This framed trio of lace and button hearts would also be an easy gift to make for someone. So what did I come home with from our wandering in Wildwood? A fabric pumpkin, of course. I couldn't resist the plaid. I'm also going on a blind date with a cookbook! Ha. My happiest moment of the day was finding this bit of artistic whimsy for our home this Halloween (and I might display it year-round. I love it that much.)

My guy and I decided to get out for some fresh air, much needed after being homebound for two weeks, and headed out for a nice lunch and some wandering around Wildwood, home of one of our favorite antique malls. This mall is huge, has lots of vendors and for the most part very reasonable prices. I saw several good-condition vintage quilts that tempted me, but I'm trying not to add to my collection, which is near to overflowing its closet as it is. I loved seeing all the Halloween-themed decor the vendors put out. You can never overdo Halloween for me. :) One booth had some blind date with a cookbooks! I love this idea. The vendor packaged them with pretty potholders and hand-painted bookmarks. This would be a great gift for anyone who likes to cook. Check out more finds in the next post!

It's time to play another round of wannabuts, where I bid on thrifted items I want but only for a minimum bid, which this time is again $10.00. I'd like to make a collage picture out of vintage pins for the holidays, so I decided to try for this lot of brooches. I probably won't win them, as large brooch lots tend to attract a lot of bidders, but you never know. These three framed needlework pictures really charmed me, and I'd love to own them, but only if I can get all three for ten bucks. There are several colors of yarn that I need in this 9.2 pound lot. Yarn has become more desirable to bidders now that we're approaching the fall and winter holidays, so it may go for more than my minimum bid. Stay tuned to the blog to see the results. :) Image credit: all of the images in this post came from the original auction listings at ShopGoodwill.com.

Back in June I got to the point where I was creating and scheduling posts to publish nearly ten weeks ahead of their date, at which point I decided to stop. I love online journaling, but this mild obsession to put masses of posts on the blog so I don't miss a day of posting has really gotten out of hand. It's all about my health situation, I think, and the fact that time is running out for me. Let me say upfront that time is running out for everyone, so I'm not special. I think I've just become more aware of it lately. I don't talk much about my health situation because it's problematic and sometimes can seem a bit scary. On the day I'm writing this particular post (June 25th) I am recovering from a kidney infection. For a couple of days I was pretty sick, and worried I'd have to go to the doctor and endure a lot of tests and poking and prodding. Diabetics are always at risk for kidney problems; one in three develop chronic kidney disease. I ...

Real time Valerean here. I'm almost fully recovered from the flu, with just a bit of residual congestion and a lot of weariness from lack of sleep. I'm also back to work at the day job after losing 2/3 of my vacation to illness. At the moment I'm finishing work on this crochet throw I started while I was sick. I did not really start my summer art quilt; the flu + stiff fingers derailed that project just as I was beginning it. I shifted to crochet because it's mindless and I needed to do something while I was recovering. Some of my favorite projects are those that I've done when I've been ill. I have a beautiful but slightly wonky tote that I stitched while I was waiting for cataract surgery. I love that silly bag so much; working on it helped me get through a terrible time in my life. Now every time I look at this throw I'll think about my summer vacation with the flu. Not giving into sickness but creating in spite of it is one of the ha...

Although it seemed like my kind of story, and I like both lead actors very much, I deliberately held off on watching the k-drama Lovely Runner because I've been too grumpy lately to give it a fair go. I don't know why I'm so unhappy with romance series these days. Maybe because they're short on romance and long on everything else I don't like. I was able to finish it, but I admit I fast-forwarded through the last couple of episodes quite a bit due to my problems with the plot. That's on me, not the series. The premise: Celebrity singer/composer Ryu Sun-jae (Byeon Woo-seok) has all the fame and fortune any guy could want, but is sick and tired of it all. Wheelchair-bound Im Sol (Kim Hye-yoon), one of Sun-jae's most devoted fans, takes refuge in his music and is heartbroken when she hears of his sudden death. Suddenly Sol is transported via a magic watch to fifteen years into the past, when she and Sun-jae were 19-year-old high school students. Seein...

During our wandering trips my guy and I often stop at antique malls. We like old things, and they bring back some nice memories -- at least, for him. Lately I've been noticing more and more fine china dish sets (what my mom called good china) being sold for very big bucks. I wouldn't give you ten cents for them. Why? Here's the backstory: My mother had three sets of china. One we never used; my uncle brought it back from Germany after the war and sat in a hutch my entire childhood. I don't think we were even allowed to dust it. The second was a set Mom used at Thanksgiving and Christmas for the big family meals. It was my grandmother's china and had to be hand-washed because it was very old. The third set was used on other holidays and whenever family visited; I think that was the set of china my mother got as a wedding present. Another set that had to be hand-washed, too. Guess who had to hand-wash and hand-dry the two sets of china while Mom...

These faux pearl-encrusted straps were the reason I bid on a scrap lot of jewelry, as I wanted a large quantity of fake pearls to try out an idea (but, as always, didn't want to buy new.) When I began harvesting the pearls from the straps I also discovered some crystal montees scattered among them. I love montees so it was like a bonus. I ended up with a decent amount of faux pearls, plus the bonus of sixteen montees, for my winter project. :)

I've never tried to thrift toys before I went looking for some stuffies to alter, and for $10.67 I got four that were new or in new condition and a wee Halloween bow. The penguin and puppy still had their tags, and the butterfly and pig were in very clean shape. The puppy was a Valentine stuffy and still smelled of the chocolate scent added to it. I handwashed everything just to be on the safe side, and hung them to air-dry. Some words of caution about laundering thrifted stuffies: be sure the stuffing is of a washable variety (you can split a seam to have a look, and then sew it back up.) Remove all paper or tied-on tags and loose elements before laundering. Anything with wiring or electronics should not be immersed in water but instead spot cleaned. Hand wash the stuffies individually in the event the fabric dye bleeds. If you want to put them in your washing machine (I don't recommend this) you should put them in a pillowcase and pin it shut in the even...

I bid on and won a 4.2 lb. lot of scrap costume jewelry for some projects I'm planning for fall and winter; I get these so I can harvest beads and findings rather than buy new. Here's everything as it came out of the bag. I'm really pleased with the variety of beads, findings and even some wearable jewelry. My primary reason for bidding on this lot in particular were these pearl-encrusted straps. I was hoping the pearls would be easy to remove, and they are! To see more of the lot, go to my album here .

Since Tubi has most of the old BBC series I like, I decided to rewatch my favorites, beginning with Edwardian Farm , in which two archaeologists (Alex Langlands and Peter Ginn) and a historian (Ruth Goodman) spend a year living on a historic farm in the port town of Morwellham Quay in Devon. There they experience life as farmers with no electricity, running water, indoor plumbing or handy appliances other than a coal range. The challenges of raising crops and livestock while keeping themselves fed, clean and productive are amazing to watch, but what I like most are the cheerful yet realistic attitudes of the three. I think why the Farm series never get old for me is the fascinating ingenuity of the people of the time periods, who had no handy refrigerators to keep food and yet managed to store their produce and meats with old and yet exceptionally inventive methods in order to last them through the winter. Salting, smoking, pickling and preserving are all shown, as were the diffe...

After all the repairs and upcycles I did, my lot of Vera Bradley bags had two left, a big shoulder bag (Indigo Pop, 2012) and a duffel (still searching for the pattern name and release date), but these are in near-mint condition without any flaws. Since I think they're valuable I'll hang onto these until I can find good homes for them. I learned a lot working on this project. One: I love repairing and upcycling these bags. It's a new creative challenge every single time, and I often surprise myself with my solutions. I'm also astounded by how much these bags retail for new. This one purse was $70.00 when it came out in 2019, and the pattern is now retired, so in a few years it will probably be worth twice that. My favorite bag from the lot was the first one I worked on, and I'll tell you why: the previous owner really loved this bag, and repaired it at least once to keep using it. They taught me something new (use knit fabric for strap repair...

To combat my dislike of fall I invested in A Somerset Halloween ~ Creative Ideas for a Spooky Season , which I plan to use to make some new decorations for the house for this October. The projects in the magazine are mostly small and not too difficult, and I actually do like Halloween, so it shouldn't be a chore. Harmony Lynn Goodson's "Kicking Off the Fall Season" has a lot of fun suggestions on how to welcome Halloween and fall with some whimsical decorations. We don't entertain, but we can certainly spruce up our usual October 31st efforts for the trick-or-treaters. I am not a doll person, but I could see remaking some thrifted stuffed animals in fall colors and putting them in wee Halloween costumes. There are a lot of fun ideas in this issue that will no doubt appeal to the kid in every creative -- check it out if you get the chance.

This gray floral purse in the retired pretty posies pattern from 2019 retailed new for $70.00. It has some slight overall fading, probably from laundering, but only one issue. The top edge of the big back pocket is showing wear, and will likely start to shred unless it's protected. I tried a couple of lace and ribbon ideas before I hit on one that worked and added some interest to the purse. A lace doily. :) For the front pocket I stitched on a quilted tag by 14carrot to add a bit of interest to the front. I think it came out neat.

Being sick with the flu really limits my ability to work on projects; the most I can manage at the moment is a bit of crochet. So I started a new throw in the free Ocean Tranquility pattern from Anastacia Zittel, which is just interesting enough to keep me engaged without having to overthink everything or deal with complicated stitch counts. It works up really pretty, and I'm making it in random blocks of thrifted yarn in colors that appeal to me. I pulled these from my stash this morning, although I may change my mind on the off-white. Stay tuned to the blog see how it turns out.

In my thrifted Vera Bradley lot were two small bags that had no issues at all. I'm using the smaller wristlet bag as is as a first aid kit for my purse. The larger pink velvet bag is the perfect size to hold my crochet hooks, but it needed a little more color. I used a quilted tag made by 14carrot to embellish the bag of the bag, and then added some buttons. These small bags are very easy to sew and upcycle. I think the buttons add a little fun. And here's the back. :)

One thing I said to my guy last year that motivated him to start taking little day trips with me was this: "We won't be able to travel forever in our old age, so let's do it while we still can." For the last week of my vacation in August we both fell ill with the flu, which we think we caught while visiting the city during my first week of vacation. We're never sick at the same time, so that was quite disconcerting. Our symptoms grew fairly severe for the first four days as well, and we spent most of the time in bed. I got up to take care of the dogs, dose us with medicine and prepare light meals, but that's all I could manage. I haven't been that sick in a long time. My recovery lagged a lot longer than has been usual for me, too. At one point I thought, "This is how our life will be when we're too old and frail to get out and about much." That really depressed me. Rather than keep that sadness to myself, I talked to my guy about...