Thrift Share Monday- March 12

This week it appears I went way off the beaten path, as in I've made some thrifted purchases that are not my norm....and one well...I don't think is a frequent thrifted norm in general.

Last weekend at a monthly market I had seen an old vintage ironing table, wooden top with thin metal legs for $30.  I had debated about asking to lower the price, but even at a lowered price it wasn't something I really wanted to spend money on.  So I left with it on my mind.  :-/   Then my week starts and I run by my regular thrift shop.  I see a worker place down a small table top ironing board in a area I usually don't look at, so I go see what there is.  Then low and behold I see this.  A wooden ironing table for $4.  Yeah, I want it.  It would be a great/cute table/display for my markets, and it is very sturdy  Awesome!

The same day I see an other item at a very low price, but an extremely impractical purchase.  So I walk away.  However, I go back the next day, and it's still there.  Ugh!  It is soo inexpensive I know at one point down the line I'm gonna be kicking myself for not buying it....so I did.  A  7' sled, for $5  (OMG! as I'm typing this I decide to look it up and it's worth $150)  This purchase is far from practical since I live in Austin, and we don't get snow, aside from the single flurry once every few years, but my kids grandparents have a house in Ruidoso, NM where they plan to retire (I think this year), and they get snow.  Yay!  I'm soo happy with this purchase.  :-)

Photo of sled at thrift shop before I made my purchase.

The rest of the week was quiet, until Friday.  I had been eying an Estate sale, the photos really didn't show much of anything I'd be interested in buying, but because it was in a high end neighborhood, 5,000+ square feet, and on the lake I just had to check it out.

Me and mom my got their early and waited in line, in the 40 degree weather (burrr!). 

Holy cow!  This house was ridiculous.   The estate photos doesn't do this sale justice.  This place was crammed packed with toys, dolls, knick knacks. Here are a few generic photos I took with my phone, plus a quick wobbly video of one of the rooms that was cased with dolls.  I know for one I would be scared to be in this house at night.  Who knows what all these dolls do after midnight.   

There were 6 shelves, in one room, on one wall just filled with little things.  Much more shelves throughout the house

1/10 of the Christmas room

Small section of a table covered in more toys. 

As usual I bee line to the kitchen  to see what I could find, and found two lovely lime green Pyrex bowls.

This place was overwhelming with dolls EVERY-WHERE. So it seemed like I roamed and roamed and roamed.  I keep thinking I was missing something.  Little baggies of grouped toys and knick knacks all over.  This was a little high priced, but it's seamed like Matryoshka dolls have done well for me, and it did appear that the tags at the bottom of these ornaments were Russian, so I bought them.  They really are pretty,  who knows I might just keep them for myself.  Can you pick out which one of these things doesn't belong here?

Don't know how that little old man got packed with these beautiful girls.

This one is my favorite.

This one I thought was different.  She has hair.  Is this common?  I haven't seen too many of these, but the ones I have seen don't have hair.

 They are all so pretty.

I'm getting ready to check out, and there is a long line (like 20 people deep).  I get in line then once again I feel like I am missing something.  So I start walking some more, and what did I miss?  The master bedroom, duh.  The floor plan to this house was really strange, and apparently I keep on missing the master bedroom since there were so many people in this house.  The bedroom wasn't huge, and it was filled with racks of clothes, but then I go into the bathroom.  Nothing too exciting at first, but then I start strolling the closet. Yes, I said strolling the closet.  It was a U shaped closet in the bathroom.  Picture the bathtub in the center of the room as you walk in.  To the right was a hall of closet, then it wrapped around and back up to the other side of the bathtub.  This bathroom/closet was as large as our living room, dining room, kitchen combined.  Ugh!

At the back of the closet was a table of scarves.  I usually don't look through clothing and stuff like this, but did just because.  I found a cute scarf that I though would look good as a hair wrap.

Chiffon, hand rolled, hand printed scarf. 

Then I bumped into scarf that I recognized it's mark, Vera.  I grabbed it and looked for some more.  I saw one other, but it had a hole.  So I strolled out of the closet, and back into the master bedroom (sheesh all this walking is making me tired). (Research on this scarf shows the signature is from the early 1950's, and looks to be in perfect condition.  Wow!  I saw another scarf similar to this listed on Ebay, but with different colors for $99.  Does anyone have any suggestions or experience in selling Vera scarves, and what should I list this for?)

Early 1950's Vera silk scarf

On, Esty, I see a lot of vintage purses, and it looks like they sell.  So while in the master bedroom I see this sleek purse (Bags by Nicholas Reich).  I'm not much of a purse person, but its simple, sleek lines make me want to get it.  If it sells it sells, if it doesn't then I'll have a nice dress up purse for that day I ever go out someplace nice.  Or you know what?  This purse would probably look fabulous if you're just dressing up your jeans.

There weren't any other purses in the master bedroom that caught my eye,  so I started hiked my hike to the other end of the house looking for the never ending checkout line, and did some more browsing along the way.  Then laying on the floor with some dolls were these super cute purses.  The wine colored one, unmarked, caught my eye since this is one of my favorite colors.  The purse if very simple, but unique.  A zippered pocket on one side, flip up the flap and you have your standard purse interior with a small zippered interior pocket, but as I had the flap up I noticed the flap it's self was also another opening.  This sold me.

Lift up flap to get access to an interior pocket.

Flap its self is a huge pocket. 

Then we have this gorgeous camel colored purse (Genuine Leather by Morris Moskowitz).  This purse would look so nice with jeans,  and like the other purses it is simple.  My thing with purses, and why I'm not a purse person is because what I always see at the store are purses with a dozen zippers, belt buckles, chains, loops, hooks, and whistles (ok...maybe not the whistles).  So these purses are the perfect purses, in my eyes.  What's even better?  They are like new.  This one, the camel colored one, does not look like it's ever been used.  It's in absolute perfect condition. 

You know, this estate sale and week was really fun.  I love my out of the norm purchases.

Read more »

Looking for a Niche

I'm all over the place with my ideas, and wants.  Sometimes you hear that you need to focus on one thing and just go with it, but according to a fabulous blog and book I'm gonna do what I want.  At least for now.

The blog/book I'm referencing is Austin Kleon, and his brand spanking new book is "How to Steal Like an Artist".  I absolutely love it.  It is based on a blog post of his, which has now blossomed into a book.  In his book, at one point, he mentions what happens when you focus on one thing, leaving other things behind.  When you do this you end up feeling an ache, because you miss/long to do the other things you want, that you have pushed aside.  Therefore, in the long run you're not happy doing the one thing your doing.  (He refers more to things you love, but I'm gonna translate this to things I want to try.)

I'm not doing anything drastic I'm just saying I want to do a variety of handmade items.  At first I wanted to focus on purses, but as of now those are just sitting there, and at this point in time they haven't done much for me.  Don't get me wrong, I'm happy with my bags that I've made, they just haven't satisfied that feeling... yet.  I think making my own pattern, might help, but that's down the line. 

Recently I got an itch and made some aprons.  Now I'm gonna do a few key fobs.  I placed an order for a few supplies on Wednesday and got them Saturday.  So super fast.  Thank you A Graff Supplies.

I'm really happy with my color choices.  The webbing colors I chose are with the intent to be accented with vintage sheets, of course, plus I got some hardware to match some black webbing I've been hoarding. 

Next, out of the blue, while roaming Etsy I saw some super cute baby fabric shoes, and figured they'd look super cute, also in vintage sheets.  Plus they'd be fantastic scrap busters.  So I bought the pattern.  Thank you LenasShoePatterns for the super fast email PDF delivery.   I can't wait to make these.  I don't have any baby tryer-oners in my circle, and I don't plan on making any more babies.  So if you have some little one's who could sport some cute fabric shoes I'd love to have them test some.  So keep an eye out for when I'll need some testers.

These are smalls addition to my large array of things I want to make, baby steps.  Will these sell or just sit here?  I'll never know until I try.  Bottom line, you'll never know until you try, and you'll ALWAYS wonder.  I'll do these, then go onto the next thing.  Then back and forth, or just forward. 

Maybe along this array of things I'll find my niche.  Have you found your niche? 
  

Read more »

Keep on trucking

Last minute I decided to do another market, last week.  Like less than 48 hours, last minute.
In Austin ,down on SoCo (South Congress), "they" (shops on SoCo) celebrate First Thursday.  The first Thursday of each month shops, on this strip of Congress that normally close early, stay open late.  Some of these stores and restaurants have sales, specials, and bands.   Also on this day street vendors pop up, whom are not usually there during the regular work week.  So at the last minute I decided to sign up.

First Thursday had been in my thoughts for some time.  Even before I started the blogging/Etsy thing, I've wondered about it.  A few weeks ago I inquired about setting up a booth and got a response with space details and pricing, but I checked out the weather forecast, and rain was scheduled for the whole week.  However, last week as I was checking on the weather for the week I noticed there was no predicted rain on that day.  Ugh!  Maybe I'll do it next month, I thought.  However, since I'm currently unemployed I figured it's now or never.  I don't plan on getting out of a day job early to participate in a weekday market.  You know what I mean?

I held my breath, and inquired if any remaining spots were available. I got a response back, yes.  So I jumped in and and took it before I over thought it.  Then I realized...(well I knew, but it didn't register) that this is an evening market, and I would need lighting, and my market setup/help (my sisters and mom) were all at work during setup time.  So I'd be alone.  I'd have to set up all by myself, tent, tables, heavy bins, and unpacking.  Then once again this is at night, and I didn't have lighting for this.  Yikes!!!

The next morning I decided I'd do a test run on the tent, that I had only used once before, to see if I could set it up by myself.  The answer was no.  Oh no!  Then I went to the store to see what kind of lighting I should get, and as I roamed I remembered I had some rope lights.  Yes!  However, when I dug them out they ended up being colored lights (red, blue, green).  Ugh!  That is not going to work.  Then I remembered my sister had a whole bunch of paper lantern, battery powered, lights from her wedding and she said I could use those. Yes!

Once she brought the lanterns over, that night, my mom asked her about some stranded bulb lights she also had for her wedding, and thought they would be better than the lantern lights.  She said I could use those so I went right over to her house to get them.  I had to do a test run set-up of lights that night to see how they would look. After about an hour of messing with them and seeing how to work with a 100 foot strand of bulbs I got it up.  They looked great.

D-day was already here.  I made sure I had everything I needed for the day, extension cords, power strip, credit card processor (Square), receipts, clips, string, tape, scissors, table cloths (aka sheets), rope, cash, bags, wrapping/packing paper, etc....etc....etc.  As well as merchandise.  Before I knew it I was out the door, with only chocolate milk in my stomach (from the morning), and it was already 2:30.  I ran by the gas station grabbed some chips and Gatorade. 

I got to the Snack Bar (one of the restaurants that lease out their parking lot for the markets) and got appointed my spot.  Right next to me was a couple holding their new, just purchased, tent and they were reading through the instructions on how to set it up.  I offered to help them since it looked similar to mine, and it was up in no time.  They then helped me set my tent up.  Phew!  I was sweating on how that was going to get done.  I then spent the next 1 1/2 (or was it 2 1/2 hours?) unpacking and setting up. 

Time to sit back, relax, and wait for customers.  My sister got there eventually to help me through the night and pack up at the end of the night.

My other booth neighbor also had a vintage tent set up, similar but different stuff than me.  She mostly had vintage wears, clothes, purses, glasses etc.  So that meant we had a lot to chit chat about (and I'm so not the chit chat, talking type), but it was good company and fun.

The company was good, unfortunately the sales were bad.  Like super bad.  Far from $50 booth space, break-even bad.  It was the same for my two neighbors.  Hmmm.  I don't know what happened.  People walked by, but didn't seem interested.  As the night went by, we all talked wondering what the deal was.  Were the people just walking by from their cars to the restaurant?  Were they students with no funds to spare?  I don't know.

This is my 4th market attempt, the 3rd out of 4 being a total bomb.  Do I continue?  Should I just stick to Etsy?  Even though that doesn't do super well, yet.  I've registered to attend a market in May, and yesterday it was confirmed that I am accepted.  The tricky thing to this market is it's ALL hand-made goods, so my vintage treasures security blanket would be removed and I'd be totally naked with my purses and aprons (that really haven't sold.  Two purses and 3 coin purses in the last 10 months).  Ay!

Of course I need more inventory, so my mind is brewing of ideas for additional, different inventory.  I'm thinking vintage sheet napkins, key fobs, burp cloths, coin purses, and bunting.  For burp cloths what would be best for the second side, flannel or terry cloth?  It's two months from now so I need to get moving.  I've learned too well that time flies.

I hope I'm not a masochist (not really, but why else do I keep on trying with the continued failures?). However, after some time thinking about it, and not really thinking there would be a difference in the customer base, it was realized the venue does make a difference (so I'm guessing).  The last market I did at the High Ball, a vintage, retro restaurant/bar/bowling alley, where I did really well at makes sense since I sell vintage stuff.  Duh!  If people/customers like the High Ball it's because of their vintage/retro feel they would more likely like vintage/retro goods, right?  This is where I need to stick to, at least for my vintage goods. 

Oh, I will say at this last market I was pleased with how I got my purses and aprons displayed.  I ran a clothes line and clothes pinned them up along the sides of the tent.  Plus the tent did look really nice at night.  Those lights made all the difference.

Read more »

Thrift Share Monday - March 5

Thrifting this week did not produce any hard goods, however I do have some sheets to share.
First though I would like to share with you a fantastic find that my sister scored.

It's fan-freaken-tastic, isn't it?  It was kicked to the curb two houses down from where she lives, so she snatched it right up.  What ever!!!  Why don't I find great things like this on the curb?  Needless to say she is excited about it.  My first question to her was "is it stinky?", she said no, and she plans to have it recovered and placed in her bedroom.  (Got a curb-side pick-up question for you at the bottom of this post.)

Here are my vintage sheet scores, which I've acquired over the last two weeks (Don't forget you can buy fat quarters from my Etsy shop). 

The sheet I wanted a match for.

I think I need to "will" certain colors more often, because I've been thinking that I needed to find a sheet to match another sheet I recently scored.  It was a very bright and cheerful sheet (see to the right), but most of the sheets in my stash don't coordinate (since I like to use multiple, coordinating sheets in my projects).  Then low and behold I found a sheet that would be perfect.

My match for the above sheet to the right.  :-)

Also, as I was looking through my stash I realized that purple was missing from my rainbow.  Sheesh, how has that happened?  I needed purple in my collection.  Then I found this.

Granted it's not full purple (I know it's more towards lavender), but it has great colors and more purple then in all my other sheets combined (seriously, there might be a smidgen of purple in one sheet in my whole collection of 60+ sheets).  I was sooo happy to find this sheet, such vintage loveliness.  

I love this red and white sheet.



And this flower vine....it's great.  I have another one like this, but it was so worn loved by it's previous owner that its colors weren't as popping as this one.  However, I do love the "loved" one since it's sooo flow-y and soft.  I'll just hold onto what is remaining of it for my own personal use, and have this new (to me) one up for purchase in my Etsy shop (as seen in my Flickr page).
 
This isn't vintage, but I figured this would be a good addition to my collection.  Plus it would make a cute apron, very farm-ish.   Now, what is the ideal name for this pattern?  Gingham or checkered?
 
A great pair of stripped pillow cases.

 A duplicate addition to my stash.  I couldn't just leave it at the thrift store.

And a great Spring sheet.
 

So now, my question to you is... how many of you have done curb side pick-up when a item has be kicked to it like my sister's find?  Anything unusual, and how hard was it to get it into you car?  My mom did this once when she saw a table at the curb, across the street from her.  It was sturdy and a great looking table, it just needed a little TLC.  So what did she do?  Dragged it across the street, by herself, and into her garage.  I just picture her like an ant dragging a large item to a new location.   She restored the table, stripped, sanded, and restained it.  My other sister ended up using it for a bit, and now my ex-husband has it.  Wow!  What an ongoing life for that table when it was destined for the landfill. 

Read more »

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's....the waist down?

Today was Austin's annual Kite Festival.  It was a perfect day.  Mid 70's, blue skies, and what every kite needs...wind.

The whole family goes down, my sisters, their husbands, our kids, and our mom.  It was so nice today.  A great day to fly a kite.

The best, most unusual one seen here was a from-the-waist-down kite.  Doesn't sound like it makes sense right?  I don't know what else to call it.  I was gonna say the lower torso, but the legs are there.  Half a body kite?  Guess that works too.  (Last years most unusual kite was a horse, of course.)

 This kite danced in the wind.  Literally.  It did a little Jig.  Or was it pouting and kicking it's legs because it was missing it's upper half.  Probably not.  If it only had a brain it might have.  Ha!  Sorry, corny I know, but I couldn't help myself.

My kids had a variety of kits to fly.  My personal fav, my black, red and white star kite.

A jet kite.

This fish kite, is a whopping 4 inches wide.  A fun little itty bitty kite to fly.  

This ship kite is not ours, but I do love how these sail in the wind.  I need to keep an eye out for one for myself.

 This rainbow checkered kite was huge, also not ours.  It had to have been 15 feet wide.  It was a monster of a kite. The little kit in the same picture was flying about the same hight, and was probably standard sized.  Look how small it looks compared to the checkered kite.

Now, what are you doing sitting there reading this?  Go fly a kite!

Read more »

WeekendTraveler

(Oh hell, boy am I'm lazy.  I've had this post written since last weekend, and all I needed to do was take pictures of my semi-finished bag.  I just got around to it today. Sheesh!)

The Weekender Travel Bag is a pattern by Amy Butler that I've been stalking eying for months.  It's such a lovely looking bag, and appeared to be a great size.  So when the pattern appeared for sale, about a month ago, on Stitch Steals I jumped on making the purchase.

When the pattern arrived I already had my main fabric choice picked out.  A little over a year ago, before blogging,  I had scored a whole bunch of fabric at a garage sale two houses down from me.  I had scored almost three yards of some home decor Waverly, vintage, fabric ($5 for a bag full of fabric).  I've used some of this fabric on a previous project, Phoebe Bag, so what I had left was just barely over two yards, much less than what the Weekender Travel bag called for, but I was determined to see what I could get out of it.

I opted to use the vintage fabric for as much as I could for the interior and exterior; I wanted to keep cost down.  Ha, but that didn't happen.  Well, I guess I did since I didn't have to buy two yards of exterior fabric, and I spent three days buying the other supplies from Joann's using my phone app 40% off coupons. You know, one day buy two items using the two 40% off coupons, Peltex (interfacing, some fabric) using the 40% off any single cut coupon, and the 40% off any notion (zipper, template plastic, cording).  This seems like it could be a hassle, but Joann's is right around the block from me so I'd run by before I picked up the kids up from school.

Pretty zipper. 

Slowly I started the process on a Saturday cutting everything out. Everything was going smoothly until
Tuesday night.  My two large panels were completed, large pockets in place, with pipping, and straps.  I just finished sewing in my zipper into the top panels and it looked great.  So pleased with how the zipper came out.  Then I looked at the picture on the pattern.  Hmmmm?  The top panel assembly with the zipper didn't appear to be the same shape as what I just completed.  It was almost inverted, or the opposite shape of what was shown.  The pattern showed a narrow center with wide ends, and what I had was a wide center with narrow ends.  Huh?

What my top panel looked like.

Surely this pattern had the incorrect drawing/image.  Do I continue?  I decided to look online to see if there were any corrections to the pattern.  There were two, but it looked like my pattern had already been updated.  Hmmm?  What happened?  I sat and looked at the pattern/instructions for a few minutes to see if I could decipher what I was doing or what I did.  Then I saw it.  OMG!  I placed the wrong side of the pattern on the fold.  Instead of placing the narrow side of the pattern on the fold I placed the wide side.  UGH!!!  I had already cut out all my fabric and did not have enough of this vintage fabric to redo these panels.  I wanted to cry.

What the top panel SHOULD look like.  Ugh! *Sniff Sniff*

See?  It was so pretty.  So sad to seam rip it all. 

I threw my nicely made incorrect top panel on the table walked away, feeling defeat, and was headed for bed.  I wanted this bag for my trip the next day, and had already spent a lot of time getting to this point.  It wasn't going to get done, and without my deadline who knows when I'll get around to fixing/finishing it. Not only did I no longer have anymore of this exterior fabric but I would also have to go back to the store to buy more interfacing for these panels.  This project had already added up to be pricey (way more than I would have liked, WITH coupons), the thought of spending more money on it was so irritating.  I was sad...the zipper came out so pretty

For a second I wondered what would happen if I continued the pattern with my inverted top panel.  Would the pattern still piece together?  If so what would be the downside to it?  Then it clicked.  Take the panels apart, remove the zipper, seam rip all the stitches, cut the panels in half, then re-attach the correct way.

Holy Cow! This worked!!!!!  YAY!!!!  I was sooo happy.  Granted I have two seams that shouldn't be on this bag, but I didn't have to buy anymore supplies, and I got this fixed that night (after all the taking apart....you know how cumbersome seam ripping can be.  Especially when you've reinforced around a zipper). 

Top panel cut in half and attached the correct way. 

The next morning, Wednesday the day of my trip, I attached the top, bottom and side panels together.  Holy Cow!  Let me tell you that was the hardest thing I've sewn to date.  This bag has so many layer of fabric, with pipping, interfacing, and Peltex it was hard to maneuver. If I'm counting correctly it's 8 layers.  (Lets see...top panel is 3 layers of interfacing plus 1 layer of fabric.  Large panel exterior fabric, interfacing, plus 2 layers for the piping (since fabric is folded in half around the cording).  The Peltex is not actually sewn through, but the hassle here is that it (along with the pipping) tended to push my zipper foot off to the side, so it was hard keeping my 1/2" seam allowance at a 1/2".  I wasn't able crowd the pipping as much as I should have.

Unfinished bag guts innards.

After all that was said and done the exterior of my bag was done, and from afar it looks nice, but don't look at my non-crowded pipping.  I started to look at the interior assembly instructions and realized I didn't have time to finish that step since I still had to pack and get ready to leave that day.  So I took my bag as is.  Phew!

You could see on the seam on the top panel where I had to cut and sew the panel back together. 

Side bag pocket.

Now, back from my trip I am happy that my bag held up.  I don't know why, but I always have a fear when I make things that they will self destruct.  Completely unravel, like in a cartoon.  I could see myself carrying the bag full of clothes, and it just falls apart like box where all four sides just fall open to the floor.  Isn't this the strangest thought?  Especially since I've been using a purse I've made for over a year, and it hasn't fallen apart....yet.  However, I could see where some seams of my travel bag were a little stressed, by the fullness of my packing, but since I haven't inserted my interior lining I can go back and reinforce my stitching around the bag and possibly crowd the pipping. 

I'd love to make another one, but it will be awhile due to the cost of all the supplies.  At least I have one, and that makes me happy.

Happy Sewing!

Read more »