Valerean

Someone who loves me promised to thrift a birthday gift for me for $10.00 this year (I always ask for no gifts, just cards, but no one listens.) Last Saturday the package arrived. I suspected it was fabric, but when I opened the package I got a color explosion surprise: a rainbow quilt made with macaron fabric! It's beautiful and especially apt. I'm now known for my French macarons, which as this person well knows I only bake for people I really love because they're a pain to make, lol. The squares have a lovely pinwheel 3D patchwork on sand-colored tonal fabric, which is also very me. It's in super good condition, too. My dear one also sent the invoice, which showed they thrifted it for $9.99. What a perfect bargain!

As I mentioned earlier I bid on three listings this week that I wish I could own but that are likely going to be grabbed up by others. I loved this quilt the moment I saw it, so I bid with my maximum upfront in hopes that I might win it. Alas, I didn't. The bidders swarmed and the quilt ended up selling for $119.88 This gorgeous chest of Madeira thread that I already knew I wouldn't win finally went for a whopping $182.31. In the end I was glad I didn't win it because the thread is actually rayon and not silk like I thought. Finally, did I win this immaculate-looking sewing machine? I sure did! I had only one challenger, and they dropped out right away, so I got it under my max bid amount. I'll tell you more when it arrives, but one wish out of three is great! Image Credit: all the images is this post came from the original auction listings at ShopGoodwill.com.

I repaired the split seams on the survivor quilt, which turned out to be about 11, and wasn't difficult at all. It's a testament to the original maker's skill that it has held together so well all these years. I then shaved the fabrics with pilling to tidy them up. It's pretty common with polyester quilts to have a lot of that, but this one had pretty minimal amounts. Here's a patch before I shaved it. See all the little balls on the orange patch? Here's the after shot, shaved clean. I considered retying the quilt, but it's extremely heavy and hard to manage with the arthritis flare-up I'm currently dealing with in both hands. I'll also have to work on a floor to get it to lay flat, which my knees don't want to do this month. So for now my work on repairing this quilt is done, and I'll save the rest for a time when I'm in better shape to handle it.

After inspecting every inch of the survivor quilt, which turns out to be very well made, I found and pinned seven small splits in the patchwork seams. The repairs I need to do are quite minimal. Here's the backing. I found four large areas of faint oxidation or soiling stains on it; they're the very light brown circles in the four quadrants of the quilt's rectangle. Since they are in the same position and of the same approximate size, that makes me think it was left folded up in a garage or storage unit for a long time. They are barely noticeable and on the backing, so I don't mind them. There is one area with set-in stains that I couldn't get out with regular laundering; it's probably blood or some kind of oil or car-related fluid. After I repair the seams I'm going to treat the stain with some hydrogen proxide and see if I can lighten it a little. Note here: you shouldn't use bleach on older textiles; it's too harsh.

This is the wannabut quilt after laundering. Thanks to the polyester still being strong I was able to put it in the washer and give it a good soak in mild detergent and a little vinegar to remove a faint storage smell. After laying it out on the floor of the front room, I'm now pinning split seams in need of restitching. Quilting it would be a challenge for me because it's so big, and I'm trying to avoid giant projects like that would be. After that I will probably sew new ties through the top and backing to hold the quilt together. Because the quilt was never quilted, and only has a few old, disintegrating thread ties here and there it has some bunched places, but I think I can smooth out most of them. I'm renaming this quilt "Survivor" because it has weathered a lot of years and use, and still looks pretty good for its age.

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 i...

The quilt I got for $7.99 during the last round of Wannabuts arrived; let's see if it's as pretty as the pics. It's a really big quilt -- a couple inches short of a queen size, from the look of it. I think the patchwork is really charming. I'd say this was made back in the seventies or eighties. It's actually quite well made, likely out of polyester clothing scraps (which is also why the colors are still nice and bright. Polyester generally doesn't fade.) There is no batting, and the backing was probably a sheet the maker repurposed. I'm not a fan of polyester fabric, but I repaired a quilt very similar to this one many times over the years for my mother. A friend of hers who was wheelchair bound hand-sewed the entire quilt, making it from scraps of her own old clothes. Mom loved it and always asked me to fix it whenever the hand stitching came loose and the seams split open. At first repairing that old quilt was a hassle, but after...

While on a day trip to Micanopy, FL we stopped by their museum where I saw this gorgeous 1930 embroidered flower and flag quilt. Unfortunately the museum didn't have the best lighting, so some of my pics of it were blurry or didn't turn out. All of the flowers on the quilt were hand-embroidered, as were the tiny flags, which are entirely stitched -- no fabric. This is what you call a masterpiece.

While I've been spring cleaning I've been parting with some quilts I can't use anymore, but this is one I'll always keep. It's very heavy, worn, and presently too fragile to be used for anything but display. Despite those limitations this is one of my favorite quilts of all time. The reason I love it is that it's the first hidden quilt I ever found. This quilt was batted with an older quilt that is hidden inside. Using old, worn-out quilts as batting for new was a frugal way for makers to source batting. It also preserved quilts that were probably much-loved. I had a conserrvator look at this one and she estimated that it dates back to the 1930's, so it's almost 100 years old. The maker sashed her blocks and created backing out of flour and feed sacks, too, which only adds to the charm of the quilt. I have no idea what the quilt hidden inside looks like; I've never taken it apart. The quilting is pretty dense, and I'd have...

Thrifting a beautifully made lap quilt for under twenty bucks is pretty hard to do. Yet when I saw this one go up for auction I had to have it, and set my max bid at $20.00. I was not the only bidder, so I didn't bother to follow the auction. But surprise, surprise, I ended up being the winner. This was probably made from a panel kit, and it's very recent, too -- I'd say it was made a couple of years ago. It's really well done and long arm quilted. There are zero signs of wear. No label, though. Anyway, I won the quilt for $19.56. It's going up in the guest room. :)

When I unpacked the third and final quilt from the $9.99 lot of three I thrifted, I knew immediately that someone had put a lot of love and work into it. I've seen art quilts like this at shows, but never at a thrift store. Talented makers like the one who designed and stitched at this level sell the work for big bucks. Since it didn't have a label, however, the name of the maker will remain a mystery. There's a theme here, too, although I'm too dense to guess what it is. Maybe something Darwinian. Anyway, each element like big game hunter Sunbonnet Sue here is utterly charming. The Picasssoesque cow and pig made me laugh out loud. All the beads attached to the quilt are high quality glass, and the piecing is expert. The hand embroidery, while simple, adds so much to the piece, too. The applique work is also expert level. I should feel guilty for what I paid for it, and I do (just a little. This quilt is worth twenty times what I paid for t...

I needed a couple of small quilts to use in my home office, so I thrifted a lot of three last month from ShopGoodwill.com. No one challenged my bid, and I won the lot for $9.99. From the moment I opened the box I had the sense I'd gotten a lot more than I bargained for. This geometric quilt is cleverly pieced; no way could I have matched up all those seam lines. This baby quilt is really bright and charming, too. Then I unfolded the third quilt, and things started to get a little weird. The last quilt was an art quilt, with hand embroidery, beading, and amazing patchwork, for which I basically paid three bucks and change. Stop in tomorrow to hear more about it in Part Two.

First a quick update on Monday's calamities: We saved my drenched laptop, got a new dishwasher on sale (with free delivery, no less) and found a new compressor for our truck's a/c, which my guy can install himself because he is the greatest mechanic whoever lived. :) Onto my quilt flip: because this thrifted baby quilt is so cute and in such good shape I was tempted to use it just as a display piece, but I need it for something else I've wanted to make for a while (which will not require me to cut it up, either.) For the flip I needed to use just a king size pillow, and some big safety pins. I wrapped the baby quilt around the pillow, tucking the safety pins inside to hold it in place. Now I have a custom-sized body pillow I can use when I nap on the couch. This will support my right arm, which is prone to bad bouts of elbow bursitis if I don't keep it elevated. Also, if I find a baby in need of a quilt, I can simply unpin the project and give it ...