You’ve heard of “animal rescue”, well I’ve been involved with “handmade basket rescue” (smile)!
I know, silly, but when I am at a charity thrift shop and I see a handmade basket, I seem to need to bring it home!
Recently I picked up this basket at a thrift shop:
Which looks like a larger version of a Sotak Handmade basket pattern I made in the past:
On closer inspection turned out it was the same pattern!
I know the work it takes to make this basket, so how could I just leave one in excellent condition for only a couple dollars in the thrift store unloved?!!??! (Yes these are the justifications I tell myself…) I just had to give it a home 😉
I have this collection of Art Gallery Fabrics scraps that I plan to use to make this quilt my friend D made me – Then Came Jone’s Nova Star:
So I thought my new basket would be the perfect vessel to store those scraps:
Here is another basket in my studio (different pattern) I rescued a couple years ago from a thrift shop which houses a collection of precut flannel squares:
I hope I come across more of these baskets in the future when thrifting, as a crafter who appreciates the work that went into them, they are a special and useful find!
Back in early January in the post 2023 Recap: A Year in “Makes” and WIPs Going Forward, I mentioned I might do a 2023 Recap of my travel in 2023. Since we are now halfway through February I decided to skip that 2023 recap, but I will share a trip I went on in early December 2023 with my sister that I didn’t post about in 2023.
So my awesome sister, who knew that December is always a challenging time for me (12/13/23 was the 5th anniversary of my late husband’s passing), came up with the idea that we should go on a “Sisters’ Trip”/do something fun in December to distract me.
She randomly selected Englewood, Florida because it is near the coast, had nice Airbnbs (she loves to stay in Airbnbs) and seemed to have a low touristy/laid back vibe. My sister loves to visit places are on not highly touristy but have a cozy vibe.
We stayed at a cottage above a garage at a house near the beach and was called “The Tree House”. The charming elderly proprietor lived on site and had decorated it in a quaint vintage “shabby chic” style with Asian influence:
The house’s garden was amazing and had a little pool as well as lots of scenic seating and wandering about areas:
And there was a garden kitty to pet:
We were able to walk everywhere including the charming downtown and only used our rental car a couple of times. One of those times was when we went on a thrift shopping excursion one day (my sister LOVES thrifting and introduced me to it years ago).
Here I am with a fantastic Marimekko purse I found for $5 at one of the thrift shops:
We visited a giant resale and flea market type of shop where we browsed for hours it seemed and ended up getting ourselves each a teddy bear as a souvenir of our fabulous time together:
It appeared to be a family run shop and we made the teenage boy running the cash register laugh when we were checking out our bear purchase, by making the bears talk to each other and him. It was fun to be so lighthearted and silly with my sister!
This sign at the shop made us laugh:
Ha!
We ate lots of seafood, as I live in a “landlocked” state and whenever I am near fresh fish, then fresh fish and I are together!
We also went to the beach and had a lovely afternoon wandering about the coastal area:
Because it was not a high touristy area we got to hang out with “the locals” and spent each morning at an awesome coffee shop walking distance from our cottage. We hung out one morning with an elderly gentleman (Englewood appears to be a large retirement community) who was from Colorado and his very friendly dog who seemed to know every other local that came into the coffee shop. We had fun chatting with people while eating our breakfast in the living room like seating area at the front of the shop:
You can see in the first photo that the dog is getting his regular “pup cup” of whipped cream.
It seemed like a wonderful and friendly place (with a super laid back vibe) plus the temperature was wonderful in early December – 60s to 70s F (16 – 21 C) – but I was attacked by a zillion mosquitos (they seem to love me) and I do not think I could live in Florida unless I walked around with a mosquito net on – ha!
I’ll close my little travelogue with a magnet that was on the refrigerator of the cottage we stayed in that made me smile!
Oh I left out something from our visit to the Pearl Street shopping district thrift/vintage shop –Heady Bauer from the previous post. The shop had a really cool used instrument section where the staff encouraged you to pick up an instrument and play whether you knew how or not:
There was a father and son in the section enjoying the instruments.
John decided to pick up a used guitar and start strumming:
John used to play a lot of instruments when he was younger (the guitar, the piano, and even the saxophone) and at one point was even in a band. I encouraged him to think about getting a used guitar in the future and start playing again.
After an afternoon of wandering around the downtown Boulder shopping areaPearl Street, we headed over to the Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse for dinner. This tea house was a gift from Boulder’s sister city in the Soviet Union, Dushanbe. Here is a snippet of the history from the teahouse’s website:
In 1987, during his first visit to Boulder, Mayor Maksud Ikramov announced that Dushanbe planned to present our city with a Teahouse to celebrate the establishment of sister city ties. From 1987 -1990, more than 40 artisans in several cities of Tajikistan created the decorative elements our Teahouse, including its hand-carved and hand-painted ceiling, tables, stools, columns, and exterior ceramic panels. Often these skills are handed down from generation to generation within families. Lado Shanidze served as chief architect. In Central Asia, teahouses serve as gathering places where friends meet to talk or play chess over a cup of tea. Many teahouses are traditionally decorated with Persian art, characterized by the use of motifs from nature – stellar, solar, and floral, by the repetition of patterns, by form over representation and pattern over detail, and by lavish decoration and color. Our Teahouse accurately reflects this artistic tradition that dates back nearly 2,000 years. The master woodcarvers, including Manon Khaidarov and Mirpulat Mirakhmatov who helped reassemble the Teahouse here, have carved their names in the ceiling. The artisans who have painted it have written their names on a green painted area above the entry to the kitchen. A message carved in the ceiling reads “artisans of ancient Khojand whose works are magical”.
Here are some photos I took while we visited the teahouse, but there are much better photos on the teahouse’s website.
They have an extensive tea menu, hundreds of teas are available. As an obsessive tea drinker, I enjoyed browsing their menu book of teas!
I ended up gong with one of the “teas of the day” which was a rose and lavender infusion. I had a lovely pot of tea along with our lovely meal. (And my pot of tea came with an little hourglass so that I would know when to put the infuser basket out of my tea pot!)
This teahouse reminded us of how many hidden gems (well at least hidden to us) there are in Colorado. We plan to spend the Spring and Summer exploring more of Colorado and finding more of those “hidden gems”.
After the teahouse we continued on our thrifting/thrift store adventures and stopped at the awesome Goodwill in Boulder. There John found an amazing deal – a metal craft beer sign to join his collection of craft beer signs in our basement bar area, for 75% off the retail price!
The sign was in pristine/brand new condition and still had a plastic protective sheet over it (which was removed for the photo above).
I found some amazing used books – several of which were recent publication hardbacks – for only $2 each!
This particular Goodwill was recommended to me by someone I’ve followed for a while on Instagram – @boulderthrifter. She was kind enough to give me thrift shop recommendations for our trip to Boulder.
BEFORE HEADING HOME
The next day we had another Independent Bookstore adventure, this time at The Bookworm – Boulder’s largest used books bookstore (after a delicious breakfast at The Buff, a Boulder breakfast top spot).
I knew The Bookworm was my kind of place because when you first walk in you are greeted by the bookstore dog!
After petting the dog for a while, I went on to browse their HUGE used book selection.
John and I had a wonderful browse in this bookstore.
Right before we headed back to the Denver Metro area, we stopped at a cool used art supply shop, Art Parts: Creative Reuse Center. I love art supply reuse centers! I’ve written about them in the past in posts such as Who Gives a Scrap?.
I had a fun browsing at this shop and left with some free art quilting magazines.
John and I decided to play tourist in our own state and spend a couple days last week in Boulder, Colorado (if you click on the linked “Boulder, Colorado” you’ll see a lovely little video giving you a feel for Boulder, Colorado from the bouldercoloradousa.com website).
I couldn’t help myself, it is early Spring and the landscape is still pretty stark around Colorado so I just had to take the photos in Black & White!
The Lodge has a cool two-level lounging area and they also serve craft beers and have a daily “Happy Hour”. The accommodations were decent although sparse, but you couldn’t beat the $70 a night price.
Excellent value for the money; and if you are really looking to save money, they also have like a $22 a night hostel (you share a room with others). There were lots of young outdoorsy adventure seeking type dudes staying there, I am sure they were enjoying the low rates for the hostel area.
John and I spent some time in the lower level of the Lodge, sipping craft beers and reading (John) and crocheting (me with my travel granny squares making project).
I loved this cool piece of art in the Lodge:
THE ADVENTURE BEGINS
So Boulder has a lot of independent bookstores and a lot of cool thrift shops, and visiting them was part of our plan while in Boulder!
We started our adventure with a trip to the downtown Boulder shopping areaPearl Streetand spent time wandering about the Boulder Book Store.
The bookstore was pretty amazing; and I could have spent a day there (but there was so much more to see in Boulder). The original building that houses the bookstore was built in 1899 and you can see the historical architecture throughout the building.
Here are a couple photos to give you a flavor of what it was like to wander about the bookstore:
I had my favorite (and now well worn) tote bag in tow; but I was well behaved and only filled it with one new book from the Boulder Book Store.
I also filled it with some new stickers for my water bottle, laptop and John’s tool chest (which he covers with stickers) as they had an amazing and reasonably priced sticker collection:
After the bookstore, we wandered around the Pearl Street shopping district and stumbled upon this very fun thrift/vintage shop –Heady Bauer. I was already having an awesome day so I appreciated the sign in front of their door: “Best Day Ever”:
When first entering the shop you see a huge wall display of crocheted blankets, including granny square blankets, mounted on the wall!
Seriously creative art and recycling!
I bought a used book there (I didn’t want the book from our first stop to be lonely!) – an original edition (complete with 1970s cover art) of one of my favorite science fiction books of all time: Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke.
It will be fun to re-read it in the version that it was originally published.
Oh we had a laugh when we stopped at the clothing store Free People to look around (I do like some of their clothes). Do you remember when I was endlessly working on drawstring bags? Well we came across a line of pants that to us looked like “drawstring bag pants”!
I feel like I could definitely learn to make those pants!
I’ll continue the rest of our Boulder adventures in my next post, and I want to close this post with some really cool embroidery art they had in the Free People store above their clothing displays: embroidered coffee and tea burlap sacks:
Although my blogging buddy @mildlygranola commented on my previous post The Horizontal Diaries, that the title of the post made it sounds like it was a naughty blog (and I nearly spewed my tea across the room laughing), I thought I’d use this blog post title once again! (Even if I could not stop giggling as I typed the title for this post, ha!)
No, sorry, this is not a salacious post about my time in an alternative (but perhaps quite lucrative…or not…not sure if there is a “kink” for middle aged women with broken ankles on knee scooters…but you never know…) career. I am just sharing some updates in my life with my leg elevated since my left ankle break and subsequent surgery (boring, right?)
Mike, with his cone (see post Guest Blog Post: It’s All Fun and Games Until Someone Ends up in a Cone) and I have been just hanging out, knitting, working on some hand sewing (a pesky English Paper Piecing project I’ve had forever), listening to audiobooks, watching television and of course napping.
Good news on Mike – he is practically completely healed from his minor surgical procedure. I took his stitches out yesterday (I might as well occasionally do some nursing since I am a RN) and tomorrow we take off his cone. He has fully accepted his cone and when John takes Mike’s cone off so he can eat, Mike immediate comes over to the cone after he finishes eating to have it put back on!
We call him “Cone Boy” or “Schnauzer in a Cone” and he loves to come over to have us reach into the cone and get face and neck pets and scratches (since he can’t scratch his face or neck with his back leg with the cone on.
I continue to work on knitting a replacement hat for the hat I lost in Ireland (see previous post) and I am slowly making progress (it is always slow for me at the beginning when I have to start with smaller needles for the rolled edge and then switch to larger needles for the body of the hat):
I did get to do something fun the other day after a doctor’s appointment – John took me and my knee scooter to a local thrift shop and I got to wander the aisles for a bit. It was a little awkward navigating the tight aisles of the thrift store so I didn’t last too long shopping, but I did have a fabulous find:
Over three yards of ArtGallery Fabric fabric – two pieces from an older line and one piece from a newer line – for $1.99 each! I do appreciate when people donate wonderful high quality quilting cottons to thrift stores AND the thrift store staff price them to move (smile)! I was happy to help the fabrics “move” to my fabric stash!
Yesterday brought two awesome surprises in the mail (the timing was awesome as the “immobility blues” was hitting me hard) from two very thoughtful friends.
First a collection of delicious Oregon (I used to live in Oregon) based Moonstruck chocolate bars:
And then another package from another friend filled with all sorts of goodies (it seemed like the goodies would never end as I was unboxing them…):
Included in this mega gift package was this:
Hmm…is someone trying to tell me it’s time to try a new hat pattern? Ha! I am looking forward to working on this hat kit after I finish the hat I am working on now.
Well back to finding something to binge watch. Recently I binged the first 3 episodes of the AMC show The Mayfair Witches; and I’ve been watching very silly science fiction and horror movies (they are great to nap to, ha!)
I’ll close this post with this card I came across that made me laugh:
Before I begin on the topic of this post, I wanted to send WARM THOUGHTS out to my blogging buddies in Texas and other parts of the U.S. where a winter storm is hitting hard. A recent post by @Sleepy Beagle will give you some perspective – Day 4 Still Rolling.
Another Paper Pieced Pincushion
Well after making the paper pieced (foundation piecing) pincushion I discussed in the post Paper Pieced Pincushion, I decided to make another pincushion, this time for my friend Dana who had sent me the incredible quilt I shared in my previous post Mind Blowing Mail.
Dana loves fabric by the designer Tula Pink (you can see some of her Tula Pink fabric adventures in my series of posts – Tula Time!, and she even attended a retreat with Tula Pink herself!). I decided to make her a pincushion, as part of a “thank you” package, with some scraps of Tula Pink’s All Stars fabric line I had in my stash.
Instead of canvas for the background, I used recycled denim as I thought it would go nicely with the colors and designs in the Tula Pink fabric.
It was actually easier working with the denim for the paper piecing instead of the heavy weight canvas scraps I had used in the tote bags I made (see post Tote, Tote, Tote Bags ).
Amazing Thrift Shop Find
Oh and speaking of the fabric designer Tula Pink, do you see that fabric underneath the pincushion in the image above? Well it was part of an amazing thrift shop score from a couple weeks ago. I gave Dana a little bit of the huge stash of Tula Pink’s Homemade fabric line fabric I discovered at a thrift shop.
image credit: tulapink.com
All the fabric was in brand new condition!
There was about 12 – 14 yards of fabric in total spread out in three package bundles for $4.99 each and I bought them all.
I cannot believe this find! For now I have the fabric packaged up and put away for a future project:
So as I close this post I just wanted to mention that I know I’ve been posting a lot (well every day) since I returned to blogging, but I have a lot to catch you up on (smile).
I love public libraries and as my series of posts The Library Stack shows, I am always browsing them and borrowing books when I can. A couple of years of ago I studied and embraced Minimalism trying to live a simpler lifestyle and letting go of things that I thought cluttered my life. I decided to stop buying books and just borrow them from the library.
Then in December 2018 my husband suddenly died and things shifted in my life on a large scale. And in early 2020 the pandemic hit and more shifting occurred to include examining how I could redefine a “simpler lifestyle” and have the physical things I enjoy in my life.
Our local libraries closed for what seemed like endless months during the early days of the pandemic and when they reopened it was only for curbside pickup. Currently they have fully reopened but have many strict protocols (beyond mandatory masks) and there are not that many patrons in the library anymore. It feels like something is lost from whole public library experience (and it is strange to see the librarians behind glass).
Pre-pandemic I was really in to audiobooks. Something shifted in me during the pandemic and I began to crave reading physical books rather than listening to them. I also remembered my secret dream of having an extensive home library like the ones I see in the home decorating books I borrow from the public library.
Like this one below:
Image credit: insidehook.com
With all the above things in the background of my mind, a couple of months ago I decided that I wanted to proceed with curating my own home library. Nothing as extensive as the image above but a nice collection with books that I’ve read and loved (and want to read again) and books I want to read (and might read again).
So how to do this and not “break the bank”? Well I used the following sources to find books for my home library:
Thrift Stores
Garage Sales
Thriftbooks.com
Independent bookstores selling used books
I was able to buy books from 50 cents to $5.00 from these four sources. Most books I paid between $1.49 and $4.99.
In addition to amassing a collection of second hand books over the past couple of months, my partner John also added an additional bookcase to the front room beyond the two he already built for me.
So here is the current version of my home library which used to be the front room/sitting room in my house:
I had so much fun hunting for books at thrift shops (one local thrift shop has 1/2 priced Saturdays).
I’ve loved the books by the authors Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child and I’ve read at least 85% of their entire catalogue of books. So I put together a collection of their books of my very own (previously I had borrowed them from the library):
I do not have their latest books as those are not at thrift stores yet or reasonably priced on Thriftbooks.com but it was so fun finding each book one at a time while hunting at thrift shops.
At the beginning of my home library book curation process I thought about filling part of my home library with classic novels and books that might impress a book collector. But that thought lasted only a couple seconds. I have no need to impress anyone with my home library except myself. It is only filled with the kind of books I will read (and my partner too).
Like lots of Science Fiction and Fantasy (especially Young Adult Fantasy, I love it):
You might wonder what I did with my craft book collection. Well it is on the opposite wall organized by craft or topic (like art quilting):
All those books – got to have a cozy place to read, right? Here is Mike the Miniature Schnauzer sitting in my favorite reading spot:
And here is Mike and I snuggled cozy under a warm blanket on a cold Saturday reading (it was quite a delicious morning with my pot of tea next to me). I rediscovered the joy of reading a while, napping, waking up and reading some more!
Note these images were taken before my partner put up the third bookcase last week.
In case you are curious, I am still occasionally getting a “Library Stack” from my local public library, though not as big as the ones I was getting (the ridiculously large stacks like in the post The Library Stack Is Back!) when the library first reopened. Here is my current linrary stack:
Speaking of libraries, some of the second hand books I’ve purchased over the past several months are former library books! I’ve gotten pretty good at removing the library’s plastic dust cover with all their library specific stickers so the books sitting on my home library shelves does not look like I stole them from a library – ha!
As I mentioned earlier in this post I used to listen to a lot of audiobooks. Current I am only listening to podcasts now, taking a break from audiobooks. I am currently enjoying holding a book in my hand and reading it. Quite a different experience. I am taking a break from multitasking in life and just enjoying a solitary task of reading a book!
Postscript
Over the past several months of going to thrift stores to find books for my home library, I’ve come across many curious items for sale at thrift shops.
Here are my top 5 favorite finds that gave me the chuckle (and I promise you I did not buy any of them):
Number 5: If you need a lamp and a place to store your leftover yarn, would this not be the perfect solution?
Yes it’s – YARN LAMP!
Number 4: Patriotic pants – they defy any further comment (but my apologies to you if you happen own these…)
My partner John is modeling them
Number 3: Donated photo frames with family photos still in them.
I could not believe how many donated photo frames I came across with family pictures still in them at various thrift stores, like the example below. Wouldn’t you perhaps remove your family photos before donating?!?!?
Number 2: An outfit for a very adventurous and crafty person.
Though it was on display way before Halloween, I think this was supposed to be a suggested Halloween outfit (hopefully as you would get a lot of stares should you select it for a cocktail party…)
And Number 1 is…
Something that you absolutely cannot imagine living without…
A cattle leg (yes real cattle leg) with hoof attached Barometer!
Yes, now you can remember the favorite steer you raised on your farm and know the current barometric pressure!
My regret is I did not buy it and put it away as the ultimate future “White Elephant” Christmas gift! (Could you imagine the look on someone’s face when they opened their gift!)
First let me wish you all a “Good Morning”, even if your time zone is greatly different from mine (perhaps you are reading this post before you go to bed!).
Just like in the August 6, 2020 post Good Morning, I would like to give you a “Good Morning” greeting by sharing some photos from my partner John’s morning bike ride, this time from a couple days ago along a reservoir near our house.
Now for the second part of this post, I am going to continue my series of posts about the latest stack of my local library books I’ve borrowed (The Library Stack), and show you the sort of crazy huge stack of books I just got from the library:
I actually took a break from “library stacks” for a while as I was trying to catch up on my backlog of crafting magazines I have to read in my home library. But then my blogging buddy, author and podcaster* (and fellow Beastie owner) Tammie Painter shared her latest “library stack” in her post It’s Time for An Action-Packed Library Stack and it made me want to go to my library and get my “stacking” on! (I am easily influenced).
(*If you enjoying listening to podcasts check out Tammie’s wonderful The Book Owl Podcast available on the podcast platforms).
In addition to my standard home decorating books (so enjoyable to browse with a pot of tea), I have a couple books in the stack related to my latest obsession – making granny squares (see post Granny Square Madness).
Speaking of granny squares, the other day we stopped at a thrift store when wandering about and I found another cool granny square afghan that needed “rescuing”. Yes – it looked at me with big eyes that said “bring me home Tierney…please…”. (It is okay if you are now rolling your eyes…)
Here is Mike (my rescue dog) with my latest “rescued” afghan:
It’s quite cozy and I had a nice nap under it this weekend.
I can relate to all the work that goes into making granny squares (I’ve made 15 more this weekend of the 43 left to make to complete my first granny square afghan) and I sort of wince to think this ended up in a thrift shop but I guess it was time for me to be its guardian!
Oh and since this post seems filled with rather random things (sunrise photos from a morning bike ride, a library stack, “rescued” granny square afghan, etc.) I will add to the randomness by closing out this post with my new tablecloth and placemats I also picked up from a thrift shop.
The napkins are from World Market and but the table cloth and placemats were a couple of dollars investment for a nice new look to our kitchen table!
Okay that’s the end of this random item post, hope you all have a great day!
I currently have “Corona-virus Blues”, what about you? I was scheduled to go next week to a very exciting conference in Nashville, Tennessee with many fun events, but my employer cancelled all business/corporate travel for the next several weeks because of the virus outbreak.
Even though I am bummed, in the big picture this is not such a big issue as there are many people impacted on a greater scale. My heart goes out to those who are currently infected and recovering as well as to the families of those who’ve loss loved ones due to this outbreak.
And now onto lighter topics such as the awesome find I recently made at a local thrift shop.
It’s been quite a while since I posted anything in my category/series of blog posts Thrift Shop Adventures. I have not done as much thrifting as I used to do in Central Oregon since moving to the Denver metro area in April 2019. I do miss the awesome Humane Society of Central Oregon Thrift Store, where I discovered many delights, such as this find such as the one I mention in this November 2018 post – Awesome $2 Thrift Shop Find.
All these high end designer fabric samples for $2 from the Humane Society Thrift Shop!
Although it does not replace my beloved Humane Society Thrift Shop, I have discovered a fairly wonderful thrift shop in downtown Denver – Goodwill Denver– Broadway.
Last weekend, while browsing, I stumbled upon an amazing find – all this fabric marked at $12, which I got for 30% off $12 because of the tag color sale (Goodwill does a daily tag color discount that varies from day to day):
Inside this bag was a large collection of fabrics by a company called Boundless Fabricswhich appears to be primarily sold by Bluprint (formerly known as Craftsy).
The package included yardage, precuts (charm squares and fat quarters), a panel (a Moda Fabrics panel) and some odd size fabric scraps.
The pictures above do not do the package as there is enough fabric for several quilts (there are at least 10+ yards of fabric among the yardage).
The fabrics could not be used in one quilt (unless you liked an eclectic mix of styles and patterns) but they could be used for several different quilts.
I looked up reviews on Boundless Fabrics and they higher than the quality of fabrics sold at JOANN Fabrics and Craft Store but slightly below the quality of those sold at quilt shops. But for 30% of $12 (oh please do not make me do the math, ha!) they were not a bad deal!
In case you are wondering I have absolutely no idea of what I am going to do with them, but I put them away for now (smile).
Postscript
Continuing with the theme of “interesting finds”…
For those of you who’ve been blogging for a while – do you remember when you were a new blogger? Remember trying to build your audience? I did it by following other blogs and commenting on posts.
Over the years (I’ve been blogging nearly 7 years) I’ve met a bunch of cool blogging buddies and regularly follow their blogs.
I noticed that many of us, especially those of us who are crafters, follow the same blogs and it fun to see for example Mary @zippyquilts commenting on a post by Chela @chela’s colchas y mas who just commenting on a post by Mariss @fabrications who had a comment from Laura @laurabrunolilly.com who had commented also on the blogs I just mentioned!
You get a real sense of community. (And there are many more bloggers in our community, like Claudia @claudiamcgillart, but I just listed a few as an example.)
Well I would like to occasionally introduce/suggest a new member to our crafter blogging community – an interesting blog find I discovered through this blogger commented on my posts:
Check out this interesting crafter blog if you get a chance and perhaps become a follower and make her part of our community. Her crafting and crafter’s life posts are well written, informative and engaging! This blog is an “Interesting Find”!
It’s time to return to blogging after taking a week or so off after 31 days straight of posting to celebrate the tierneycreates blog 5th anniversary for the month of October.
I am going to return to sharing more photos/stories from the quilt retreat I attended the near end of October; and I recently returned from a trip to Santa Fe, New Mexico and I have photos and stories to share.
But first, I wanted to share another very cool thrift store find! It’s another entry in my series of posts Thrift Shop Adventures. This post is sort of a follow up to my October 22 post, Awesome $3 Thrift Shop Find. However this time it was an awesome $2 thrift shop find!
A Trip to a Local Charity Thrift Shop
Why I ended up on Saturday at a local thrift shop: I was dropping off a donation of yarn skeins after clearing out my excess yarn stash.
In my master bedroom closet I had two tubs of yarn tucked away. Poor forgotten yarn.
A couple of years ago I made a commitment to only keep the craft items/materials that I loved and used (see my series of posts My Minimalism Journey) except I appeared to have forgotten about my yarn.
I pulled out the two large tubs of yarn, dumping all the skeins onto the floor and discovered I had yarn that I purchased over 15 years ago, never used, and likely would never use (especially the faux fur type of yarn that was popular for making those furry looking scarves 15 years ago!). I was able to put together a large package of yarn skeins to donate to a local charity thrift shop.
After pulling out all the yarn I would never use, I decided to put the yarn I would like to make something with (someday) somewhere besides tucked away in tubs in the back of my master bedroom closet.
So I organized (and I use that term loosely) the yarn skeins in the closet of my studio which I keep open most of the time:
So with my remaining yarn organized, I headed off to a local thrift shop to donate the yarn I did not need.
A Yummy Find
After dropping off my donation at the donation area in the back of the thrift shop, I figured it would not hurt to just peek inside, quickly (smile), the thrift shop.
Once inside I immediately headed to the crafts section and what did I find – a large bag of beautiful home decorating samples:
I could barely contain my excitement when I saw the price on the bag – two dollars! So the bag and I headed up to the counter to pay and I gleefully left the thrift shop with my prize!
Inside the $2 Bag
It was difficult not to open the bag and look inside in my car, but I knew I should wait until I got home and could fully enjoy the discovery of what waited inside.
Inside were many beautiful home decor fabric samples, like these ones below that were from New York City:
And here are photos of a sampling of the other samples, as I was putting them away in the container where I keep home decor samples (which is now full…):
Included in the package were beautiful swatches of raw silk, gorgeous embroidered fabrics, velvets and other wonderful textures.
Who knows what I will do with these fabrics, for now I am just happy to have them in my recycled fabrics collection and appreciate that someone donated them for someone else to enjoy rather than having them end up in the landfill.
In honor of my love of craft books (see posts like Craft Book Hoarder?!?!?) and my great finds at thrift stores (see my series of posts Thrift Shop Adventures) the next two giveaways are related to crafting books found at a thrift shop.
The first one is Modern Designs for Classic Quilts: 12 Traditionally Inspired Patterns Made New (2012 by Kelly Biscopink and Andrea Johnson.
image credit: amazon.com
This book is used but it is in very good condition.
It is a book I already have in my collection (and plan to make a quilt from it someday!) so if you win it then maybe we can work on the same quilt from the book at the same time (and maybe you can inspire me to actually use a book I own to make a quilt instead of just letting it gather dust on my bookshelf!)
Here is a screen shot from the Barnes & Noble Bookstore website with an overview of the book:
In addition to this book, if you win this giveaway you will also get a little wallet in your choice of color:
So How Do I Win It?
To enter the drawing for Giveaway #2 simply write in the “Thoughts/Comments” section of THIS CURRENT POST whether you prefer Classic/Traditional Design or Modern Design in general.
Feel free to elaborate on your preference of just write “Classic” or “Modern” in the Comments.
Good Luck 🙂
This drawing is open until 11:59 pm Pacific Standard Time on 10/31/18 and a winner will be selected by random drawing from those who commented on this post.
Happy Monday, can you believe it is day 22 of daily blogging in October as part of my 5th blog anniversary celebration? Thanks so much to those of you who have been finding time each day to read my ramblings! Later this week I will do a post about my 5 years of blogging and then introduce the five giveaways to celebrate the tierneycreates blog anniversary!
This post I want to share an amazing $3 thrift shop find – a collection of beautiful high-end silk and premium fabric drapery samples.
The Giant Bag of “Upholstery Fabric”
Saturday I dropped off some donations at our local Humane Society Thrift Store. As long as I was there, I thought I would peek in and see what they had in the craft section. I found a large bag marked upholstery fabric for $3. I do not need more upholstery fabric in my life but I noticed some very nice looking pieces peeking through the pile of upholstery fabric.
Here is the bag when I got it home:
Giant heavy bag of fabric
Unpacking it, I first discovered some very cool textured upholstery weight fabric:
Look at that texture!
Then to my surprise, under this fabric, was a collection of 4 large drapery swatches:
I was blown away with the beauty of the fabrics and removed the heavy duty staples and cardboard legend of the samples from the top of the swatch books.
The photos do not do the fabric swatches justice but here are photos of the fabric swatches after the individual samples were separated:
Here are some close ups of some of my favorites (though it was difficult to choose favorites):
Here is the whole stack:
Yes, are you thinking what I am thinking? Some of these fabrics will work in the piece I have simmering on my large design wall in the hallway (see post What’s Simmering on the Design Wall):
I need to focus on preparing for the quilt retreat I am attending later this week, so I am not going to play with the new fabrics and the design wall right now but it is something fun to look forward to add more to the “simmering”!
Did Not Keep It All
I did not keep all the fabric – a third of the larger pieces were not my style, so I put them back into the bag and I am going to donate them back to the thrift shop to sell again!
I think I got my money’s worth for $3!
I’ve posted about thrift shop finds over the past 5 years and I’ve created a new blog category in case you like to check those posts out – Thrift Shop Adventures.
Postscript
If you would like to see what beautiful and amazing textile art can be made from upholstery/home decor fabric swatches and samples, check out the art of Dianne Browning, a member of the SAQA art quilting group I belong – Art Quilts by Dianne Browning (bendartquilts.com).
Check out her website and here is one of her amazing pieces made with home decor fabric swatches – Crossroads:
Have you ever found something you made/gave someone as a gift at a thrift shop?
A couple of weeks ago I had my first experience of finding one of my handmade items at a thrift shop for sale – one of the little wallets I used to make. This experience got me pondering about the handmade gifts you give people and what becomes of them (and how sometimes you have to just let go for the sake of your own sanity and peace).
Found at the Thrift Shop
I was obsessed with making little wallets for a while from fabric scraps and here is one of my posts about my obsession – Little Wallet Madness.
It was serendipitous that I found the little wallet at the thrift shop and it was sort of like the Universe wanted me to find it.
I had just finished having lunch with a friend and felt compelled to visit a local charity thrift shop after our lunch. I wandered around, not knowing why I was there and then felt drawn to the purse and wallet section.
Inside the used purse and wallet section, I found this adorable item for my sister who loves Lululemon – a little zippered wallet made from recycling a Lululemon bag:
My sister has a collection of Lululemon bags and this little wallet was the perfect treat for her. So I thought – “Wow, I guess I was supposed to come in here and find this for my sister!”. Just in case there might be another one, I kept rummaging through the used wallet section and came upon this:
It looked familiar and I thought: “Ah someone else must have made little wallets like I did”
But then after inspection I discovered something shocking: an old tierneycreates business card inside the wallet!
I stood there in the thrift shop, mouth open, feeling like I was having an out of body experience.
What bothered me was not that someone no longer wanted one of my handmade little wallets and donated it (that was better than them just throwing it out); but that they just left my business card inside (note this is one of my old business cards from when I used to have an Etsy shop, etc.)
I may have narrowed it down to who could have done this and at the moment I felt like it was obviously a person without any class – a person with class would have removed and recycled my business card before donating (I’ve since calmed down from my initial reaction…).
Of course I purchased it (it was only 50 cents) along with the Lululemon little wallet for my sister. I removed and recycled my old business card from it and put it away for now. At a later time I will decide whether to regift it to someone or to re-donate it to the charity thrift shop (but not with my business card inside).
What Becomes of the Handmade Gifts We Give?
Many times you know what becomes of the handmade gifts you give people – either they love, cherish and use them or they do not. They might regift them, they might donate them, they might even throw them away. Or they might just shove them in the closet to gather dust.
This is something I’ve struggled with as a crafter and quilter and had to work on letting go – once you give someone something, it is theirs to do with what they want – even if it might be heartbreaking to you.
People who are not crafters or artists may not understand the love that goes into something that is handmade and how essentially a piece of the maker goes into the piece (and not just if you stuck yourself with a needle while making the piece and bled a little on it like I’ve done a time or two – ha!)
Sometimes my heart breaks for the maker when I see a beautiful handmade item sold for cheap at thrift shop. I’ve rescued lovely granny square afghans from thrift shops (usually sold for $2 – $3) as I know how much work goes into this type of project and I love granny square afghans but have yet to make one myself.
On the overstuffed chairs in our front window where we read (and I work on blog posts) I have rescued granny square afghans from my collection as well as on the bench where Mike our miniature schnauzer hangs out to watch cats, birds and passing dogs out the window (to practice his barking).
Here is Mike napping on one of the rescued afghans:
I do not want to become a hoarder and I know I cannot rescue all the beautiful handmade items that have been donated to thrift stores. I only rescue granny square afghans if they are exceptionally appealing and under $5, that is my guideline, but still how many granny square afghans does one person need?
A friend of mine told me a story of how she discovered a neighbor’s husband using a quilt she made her neighbor to mop up an oil spill in a garage. To me this sounds much worse than finding something you made donated at a thrift shop.
What I’ve learned as I mature as a maker is that I need to be very selective of who receives my handmade items. Also I’ve learned to that sometimes you need to just let go of your attachment to the handmade item when you gift it.
Sometimes it hurts when someone does not fully appreciate the work and time that went into a handmade item but I have to remember unless they are a maker, a crafter, an artist, or any type of creative individual they may never understand.
Life is a balance of holding on and letting go. – Rumi
Continuing my theme of cleaning out the old UFOs (unfinished projects) from yesterday’s post, this weekend I also worked on an appliqué project that I began in a wonderful class a over year ago (Adventures in Appliqué).
To finish this wallhanging size quilt top, I needed to embroider the words that go with the image using a “backstitch”:
“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished” – Lao Tzu
Hopefully it is obvious (fingers crossed) that my wallhanging contains an acorn which eventually becomes a large oak tree in time.
The concept of the wallhanging is based on the African Themed Bible Verses appliqué quilt that students had the option of making in the class.
Bible Verses Quilt by Ugandan Women, Sisters of the Heart Foundation, Sisters Coffee House during the 2016 Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show
I being the rebel, decided to use the words of an ancient Chinese philosopher as inspiration for my piece (also a rebel, I decided to make a smaller wallhanging with one block instead of a quilt with multiple blocks).
Although I have allegedly been quilting for 17+ years, sometimes I feel like a brand new quilter when I discover something else I do not know how to do: in order to stitch on the words, I needed to learn how to do the backstitch.
The wonderful instructor, Janet Storten (who is the Director of Sisters of the Heart Foundation) kindly offered to give me a refresher on the backstitch as she did cover it in her class (and I swear I did pay attention in class). I was tempted but I thought I would take a chance and try to learn the backstitch from YouTube.
YouTube is filled with awesome instructional crafting videos (and I have lost hours of time watching one right after the other). I discovered one by the talented crafter Lauren Fairweather:
As Janet had instructed in her appliqué class, I first lightly drew words in pencil on my fabric (see I did remember something). Following the video above, I slowly did my first backstitch letters!
This is another hand sewing meditative experience (slowing down and focusing appears good for the soul!)
In time I know I will get better, but here are photos of my progress so far (I had to put my work in a hoop to stabilize it until I get more experienced):
So Tierney, you stitch on TWO letters and then post photos? Why yes, I am very proud of those two letters – ha! Of course when the whole top is finished I will post an updated photo.
A Tale of Tangled Threads
Actually a tale of tangled embroidery floss, but the words “embroidery floss” did not not provide the alliteration that “threads” did in the header to this section!
Last May when I took Janet’s class on Appliqué I discovered embroidery floss cards (Tierney – have you been quilting under a rock all these years, why do you not know about basic crafting items?!?!) Janet was kind enough to share some of her huge collection of embroidery floss cards with her students. She gave me this one that coordinated with my piece:
I did not know such magical cards existed! I thought that she had discovered a mysterious and secret fountain of embroidery floss!
You see I have always purchased embroidery floss this way:
Photo credit: Jo-Ann Fabrics and Crafts
And turned these nice little packages of embroidery floss into TANGLED MESSES.
Prior to learning to stitch with them, I used embroidery floss in various colors as the “string” to hold the chopstick on the miniature kimonos I make so they can become a wallhanging.
Miniature Kimono by tierneycreates with red embroidery floss
Other crafters will likely cringe at this but I would just cut in the middle of a new package of embroidery floss in order to access a length of it for hanging the kimono. Then I would put the rest of the floss away in a small bag and it would turn into a tangled mess.
I would untangle the mess to try and cut more floss out for another kimono as needed.
Are you cringing, I mean really cringing? Do you want my “Crafter Card” revoked at this point?
Not able to find embroidery floss on these mysterious spool like cards, I just kept doing what I was doing until I discovered a large package of embroidery cards with floss and some EMPTY CARDS for $1.50 a couple of weeks ago at a thrift shop.
(Lightbulb)
So…you buy the cards and then you wind your embroidery floss onto the cards!
This weekend I sorted my thrift shop find into an old small plastic container with dividers and wound all my floss packages onto their own spool cards!
I went from this (note the tangled floss in small packages):
To this:
When I ran out of the cards I got from the thrift store bag, I used one of them as a template and created my own with some recycled cardboard.
Just think how much more basic quilting/crafting stuff I will learn in my next 17 years of quilting!
Yesterday’s post featured a completed quilt to convince you that this is still a Quilter’s Blog, so now I am free today to post about some other non-quilting random topic!
This is post is a sort of follow up or continuation of my post from August 2016, Shameless Thrifting. In my “Shameless Thrifting” post I share how I overcame my aversion to thrift stores as part of my Minimalism Journey. I also share a secret obsession from my childhood discovered during an afternoon of thrifting.
Got Outfit?
In yesterday’s post (in which I try to convince you I am a quilter again), The Wedding Gift Quilt, I mention that I recent returned from a trip to Fort Worth, Texas for a family wedding.
Preparing for the trip I realized I did not have many nice warm weather outfits for Texas (90+ degrees F and high humidity).
I live in the Pacific NW and in general we dress fairly casual; and I am a telecommuter and I can work in sweat pants and a T-shirt all day. I used to have a lot of dressy clothes from when I worked in an office, but I donated most of them to thrift shops as I discussed in my series of posts on My Minimalism Journey (My Minimalism Journey).
I could not stand the idea of going out and buying NEW clothes. Anytime I think about buying new clothes, I think about an article I read last year on how “Fast Fashion” is creating environmental issues. This is not the exact article but it has the same message: Newsweek’s FAST FASHION IS CREATING AN ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS
Several times I started to get into the car and go to the local Macy*s or J. Jill, or even Old Navy to see if I could find any cute outfits for the trip. I also thought of our local boutique shops and although I would like to patronize small businesses I was not sure if I wanted to pay their prices and I noticed many of their clothes are made in overseas.
Let’s Try Local Thrift Shops!
Thank goodness due to the influence of my sister, a very creative “thrifter”, I can proudly and shamelessly, go thrift shop shopping for clothes! There are many wonderful “gently used” fashionable clothes at thrift shops.
After visiting several thrift shops, I was able to put together a couple outfits for the trip I was very pleased with. Here is an example of one of those outfits (note I already had the shoes – they are are Dankso dress clogs with ankle straps I’ve had for many years and they surprisingly matched perfectly):
How much for the entire outfit including the jewelry (not including the shoes) – $9.
Yes $9 for the whole outfit: the $5 dress is a J. Crew dress, the $3 jacket is a boutique brand type item, and the coordinating necklace was $1. I received compliments on the outfit while on my trip!
And when I get tired of my “new” thrift shop summer travel wardrobe, I will just donate it back to the thrift shops!
Postscript
The Capsule Wardrobe
Speaking of clothing, a vlogger (video blogger), Casually Matthew, has a beautifully produced short video on how to create a Capsule Wardrobe:
I love the idea of a “Capsule Wardrobe” and first heard about this concept when I started following The Minimalists a couple years ago. I was going to add a link to provide more background on Capsule Wardrobes, but you can google this phrase and find many wonderful guides.
Essentially a Capsule Wardrobe is a way to declutter and minimize your closet while curating your clothing into a coordinated collection of clothing you really love; and is flexible in its ability to “mix and match”.
I have a fairly casual Capsule Wardrobe for my telecommuter/Pacific NW lifestyle but I would like to evolve it to be a tad more stylish and plan to use thrift shop finds to achieve my goal!
Feature photo credit: Roger Kirby, free images.com
I love working with fabrics and in the future I want to focus on more craft items than quilts – like tote bags, pillows, handbags, pincushions and “softies” (plush toys).
Although I am trying to be good on not buying crafting magazines, whenever we stop by Barnes & Noble for a book and magazine browse, I peek at the latest issue of Stuffed Magazine: The Crafting of Softies, published by Stampington & Company.
Like the other high end crafting magazines, it costs $14.99 an issue, and I could not really justify bringing an issue home with me. Especially when I have other crafting magazines filled with many patterns and inspirations waiting for me!
Until today…
Monday is my day off, and I took a car trunkful of donations (from cleaning out my crafting supplies – see my posts on “Craft Room Archaeology”) to the Humane Society Thrift Store.
I had in my purse a “$5 off a $15 or more purchase” at the Humane Thrift Store coupon, so after turning in my donation, and noticing that all books and magazines were 50% off, I thought I would just stop in for a quick wander.
Guess what I found?
I found 9 issues of Stuffed Magazine, in excellent condition, for $3 each (instead of $14.99). With the 50% off sale on books and magazines, I only paid $1.50 per issue. I also picked up a knitting book, Yarn Play, and a $1 brand new container of Mod Podge (yes I opened it up and made sure it was still usable).
I know what you are thinking….
“Tierney, didn’t we just read a whole series of posts about you getting rid of stuff in your home…and this whole minimalism thing you are embracing?”
Yup. But, but, but – I could not pass this deal by…
Also, I am thinking of it as a “rental“. When I am done with the Stuffed Magazines, I will donate them back to the Humane Society Thrift Shop! For now, I am going to put on the kettle for a HUGE pot of tea for this stack of magazines!
Sharing
Do you ever feel like the Universe is having you hold onto something for someone else?
A couple weeks ago, I clipped the Humane Society Thrift Shop “$5 off a purchase of $15 or more” coupon and stuck it in my purse with no plans to go shopping with it. It just seemed like a good idea to keep it handy.
Today’s impulse wander at Humane Society Thrift Shop led to a $16 purchase but I did not use the coupon. Instead I gave it to the woman at the counter/line next to me, who had 4 young kids with her and was struggling to decide if she could get all her thrift shop purchases.
She had a stack of books for her kids (obviously taking advantage of the 50% off sale) and a couple of kitchen items. She was having the clerk tally the items several times to see what she could get and what she needed to put back/leave at the shop. I handed her my coupon, with the excuse that it was about to expire and I did not need it. She was quite pleased and exclaimed: “Now, I can get everything, thanks!”
I felt like the Universe had me put that coupon in my purse for her.
Check out Sassy the Highly Opinionated Miniature Schnauzer’s blog page Schnauzer Snips, for her later musings.
A Day of Fun!
I took yesterday (Thursday) off from work as I wanted to attend a class that our SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) group was having at a local gallery that started at 2:30 pm (I normally work until 4:30 pm or later at my healthcare industry pay-the-bills-job).
I have a couple of friends who are retired or self-employed and have a lot more freedom in their day, so I invited them to meet me for lunch and then wander around downtown Bend, Oregon until our class at 2:30 pm.
So began my lovely Thursday of crafting, thrifting and laughing.
Crafting
Our art quilting group, met up at A6 Studio & Gallery in Bend. The A6 Studio & Gallery hosted a private Bookmaking Class and Tour in honor of their OPENING JAPAN: THREE CENTURIES OF JAPANESE PRINTS exhibit.
The class, held in the back of the studio/gallery, was taught by a professional bookmaking artist. We made an origami folded little booklet called the “Blizzard Book”. A renown origami artist had created the book and the pattern during a blizzard when she needed a paper folding project to distract her from the weather outside.
Here are photos from my first origami mini book making experience:
During the class I learned the importance of the “bone folder” tool to get crisp folds and markings during origami paper folding.
Thrifting
After the class, before heading home, I thought it would be fun to take a peek at a couple local thrift stores near the gallery. As discussed in previous posts, I’ve found some wonderful fabric treasures at my local thrift stores. (My all time greatest find was a couple of years ago at the Brightside Animal Shelter Thrift Store. I found several yards of brand new Maywood Woolies Flannel, in brown check, for $1. Yes one dollar for like $30 + in new flannel. I ended up giving an extra donation to the animal shelter as it felt like pure stealing to only pay $1, so I paid $5!).
So here was my treasure I found on this thrifting trip – nearly a yard and a half of Amy Butler Midwest Modern fabric – for $1.50!
Laughing
The day filled with laughter began around 11:30 am when I met my friends for lunch, walked around downtown Bend and through the origami bookmaking class. We have a fun SAQA group of extremely talented art quilters (some of them super famous…but I finally learned to stop being intimidated) who were completely new to origami and were very able to laugh at themselves as they completely bungled paper folding.
When I returned home, the laughter continued, as I took the dogs on a walk and I continued to listen my my latest audiobook from the library: The Girl with the Lower Back Tattooby Amy Schumer.
Photo credit: Amazon.com
Now this book is not for everyone. It is very irreverent and it is filled with profanity and some graphic stories from her love life. But, Amy is brilliant in it.
She narrates her own audiobook and her comic delivery is flawless. She shares (and maybe overshares) her vulnerabilities, mistakes and accomplishments in life is a warm-hearted, extremely humorous manner.
I love the relationship has with her younger sister; and I love the sections where she shares excerpts from her teenage journals with footnotes/comments from her current views on life.
In this book, Amy shares her flaws and her genuine desire that young women learn from some of the errors in judgement she has made related to relationships.
She also has a brutally honest story about her scary experience with domestic violence.
After listening to Tina Fey’s wonderful audiobook Bossypants and Jesse Klein’s nearly brilliant audiobook, You’ll Grow Out of It, I thought I was done with female comic’s memoirs.
I am so glad I borrowed this one from the library – numerous times on walks I stopped for a moment because I was laughing so hard. I was also glad my bladder was empty before listening!
Well the weekend is upon us. I hope you have some crafting (if you are a crafter), perhaps a little thrifting, and of course bountiful laughter!
Gratuitous photo of beautiful Central Oregon, from one of my walks
I shared in my post Shameless “Thrifting” that I learned to enjoy searching thrift shops for cool donated fabric. Recently I had a fabulous thrifting fabric find, and let me share the story of how I ended up coming upon a wonderful fabric deal at a local thrift store.
Off the Wall, and Out of My Life
Mondays are my day off and this past Monday I decided to take in some donations to our local Humane SocietyThrift Shop. I wanted to donate a couple old art pieces that were no longer bringing me joy.
One of these pieces for donation was a large poster of a photograph by David Lorenz Winston called “Solitude”. This framed poster featured a solitary tree in a wintery landscape. I loved this poster for its austere beauty and how the stark palette gave the eyes a rest in my otherwise colorful walls hung with quilts.
I had this poster hanging in my entryway for years and then I took it down for awhile and put up an art quilt in its place (and stored the poster in the closet).
Then, after being hurt by the betrayal of several friends that I had treated with an open and kind heart (a couple new local friends and one old friend), I took the art quilt down and put the “Solitude” poster up again.
This time the poster was on my wall not for its austere beauty but to represent how I felt – that I needed to just draw into myself (and close my heart) as I obviously could not trust those I thought I could trust. I saw solitude as a way to protect myself.
A week ago, I decided it was time to take this poster back down and put the art quilt back up. I have had enough of feeling like I have to draw into myself and protect myself from people.
The author discusses in depth in the audiobook what this means in regards to relationships and how when someone has an issue with you, it is really about them and their issues within themselves. A quote from this book sums it up nicely:
Nothing other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves. – Don Miguel Ruiz
Although I had read this before in other “self-help” books and sort of knew this intuitively, for some reason I was ready, while listening to this audiobook to hear this message.
So the poster came down from the wall, and I have moved on.
(and I decided never to have this poster on my wall again, so it was time to donate it)
After the Donation – A Treat!
I dropped off my donation at the Donation area on the side of the Humane Society Thrift Shop and thought “I wonder if I should just take a quick peek inside…”
Wandering over to the “Crafts” section, I noticed a package of fabric bundled in an old curtain/linen package. A dull looking Christmas-like fabric surrounded a bundle of other fabric which was obscured by a sea of blah paisley Christmas colors fabric (which also appeared to be low quality fabric).
I noticed the thick package of fabric said $2.50. I tried to peek to see what was wrapped in the paisley fabric but they had the package well sealed. I put it back in the bin I found it in and walked away.
Then a little voice told me – “go back and get it, it is only $2.50 and if all the fabric is terrible you can re-donate it”. I figured a donation of $2.50 to the Humane Society was worth feeding my curiosity of what was inside. So I bought it, and the moment I got out of the thrift shop I hurried to my car to open the package.
I was pleasantly surprised! Inside was approximately a total of 8 yards of different cool fabrics in various sizes. The fabric included many high quality fabrics from lines such as Moda, Hoffman, and Alexander Henry.
What a fabulous thrifting fabric find! It sort of seemed to be my reward for letting go on the art that no longer brought me joy!
Here is my $2.50 treat of fabric joy!
Did not take a photo before I opened the package but here is the empty package with the price (you can see it was wrapped in an old curtain or linens bag)
The Score! Fabulous Thrifting Fabric Find! (At the top of the photo you will see there were also some scraps to add to my scrap collection, ha!)
Every so often I like to re-post something from the tierneycreates archives. Here is a post from October 2015. As an update to this post – it appears the fabrics scraps I bagged up for donation sold immediately at the Humane Society thrift shop. It seems my part of the country is infested with fabric scrap obsessed crafters!
If you have followed my blog for awhile, then you know about my addiction to fabric scraps. This addiction seems to be incompatible with my desire to downsize and minimize my possessions.
The fabric scrap addiction began innocently enough – friends would give me their fabric scraps at quilting retreats. I would go for a “sew day” at a fellow quilter’s house and leave with some of her fabric scraps. As if that was not enough, I began to actually BUY scraps.
Yes, BUY FABRIC SCRAPS, you read correctly. There is a wonderful quilt shop in Central Oregon called The Stitchin’ Post and occasionally they would sell scraps bags of their beautiful high-end quilting fabrics. I bought numerous bags from them.
Beautiful scraps or not, still I was buying fabric scraps.
In my post “Creative Inspiration: Organization???” I shared my new organization of my favorite fabric scraps by color. Although I had organized scraps by color I still had a GIANT box of remaining fabric scraps.
I knew I had to do something. I needed to let go of the fabric scraps I did not completely and absolutely love. However, I did not want to throw them away or try to convince another quilter to adopt them.
So I packaged them up into 30 bags and organized them into two baskets and DONATED them to our local Humane Society Thrift Store to sell! (How do I know that the Humane Society Thrift Store sells fabric scraps? Do you want to take a guess? Yes, because I have bought fabric scraps also from several thrift stores include the Humane Society Thrift Store in the past).
The Humane Society Thrift Store Volunteer accepting my donation seemed pleased that I had packaged them up for sale. I like to imagine if they sell each bag for a couple dollars or more each that could be over $90 – $150+ profit for a wonderful local animal shelter! Some of the bags are packaged by color and some are random – so many options for the Humane Society Thrift Shops’ customers!
A “Humane” way to let go of excess fabric scraps!
When I buy fabric from quilt shops in the future, it will be actual whole fabric (fat quarters or yardage). I still have plenty of fabric scraps and my fabric scrap collection contains only scraps I truly love and plan to use…eventually.
POSTSCRIPT
I am still working through the lessons from the book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo that I discussed in the post “The Space in Which We Live“.
Yes, this blog is called “tierneycreates” and Tierney should probably discuss…well…doing some creating…instead of her random rambles about her Minimalism Journey (Part II of her ramble will continue in the next post).
I am participating in Sherri Lynn Wood’s (author of The Improv Handbook for Modern Quilters) recycled quilt challenge: Make Do Quilt Challenge – #makedoquilt. You can read about this challenge on Sherri Lynn’s blog – dainty time.net; or you can read a wonderful post by Kris R. about this challenge and “the skinny on trashing textiles” on one of the wonderful blogs I follow, Coloring Outside the Lines:
The Made Do Quilt Challenge asks you make a quilt out of recycled textiles using one of the “Scores” that Sherri Lynn Wood discusses in her book The Improv Handbook for Modern Quilters (for more about this book, see my postCreative Inspiration: Books I Own).
In her book, she helps guide the quilter, new to improvisational piecing, by providing “scores” to suggest the creation of an improv quilt. Ms. Wood likens these score to “musical scores” and shares the following:
In creating a musical score, a composer is making a record of how the music is to be performed. Yet each performance of the score will be unique. – Sherri Lynn Wood
For my challenge quilt, I am using the “Score” called Floating Squares. The score suggests to limit yourself to three fabrics (two used in small amounts and one used to “float” the improv squares). I am using 5 fabrics but treating four of the fabrics as pairs as they are loosely (very loosely) in the sort of same color way.
My fabrics are:
A recycled table runner from a thrift shop that is in stripped orange, greens, reds and purples.
Recycled orange corduroy pants (I only have a tiny bit left and it is the companion fabric to the #1 fabric above)
A recycled tweed jumper
Gold-ish recycled home decor fabric scraps (this is the companion fabric paired with the tweed in #3 – yes of course brown tweed and deep gold lame-ish fabric are in the same color way – ha!)
I began with cutting up squares with scissors (Sherri Lynn Wood is all about ruler free design) and ended up with these squares on my design wall:
Here is my “pile-o-denim” scraps on the floor to float my squares in:
And here is where I am with the piece so far:
I am very interested to see how it comes out. I am just making sections and when I feel I am ready, I will figure out the layout (the initial layout you see above may have nothing to do with the final piece).
So that is my current Tierney-creating!
POSTSCRIPT
Sassy the Highly Opinionated Miniature Schnauzer has taken a short hiatus from her SchnauzerSnips blog page but she will return soon with her story of “The Herd” (recently we babysat two other schnauzers for 5 days).
In my post,Seattle Public Utilities’ Portable Works Collection, I shared my elation of the piece Abandoned Water Structure (designed and pieced by myself and quilted by Guadalupe Designs) being purchased by the City of Seattle for its Seattle Public Utilities Portable Art Collection. Yesterday I mailed it off the framer in Seattle and I wanted to share the custom label I made for the back of the piece – I included the photo of the structure that inspired my creation of the piece:
I of course have more random rambles, but I am trying not to make my posts too long (so you do not fall asleep while reading!). More next time!
Feature image photo credit: Charles Novaes, free images.com
Check out Sassy the Highly Opinionated Miniature Schnauzer’s pageSchnauzerSnipsfor her latest musings.
MY HISTORY WITH THRIFTING
I titled this post “Shameless ‘Thrifting'” as I used to be ashamed to go into thrift stores. I would avoid them at all costs and despite hearing stories from friends about the cool items they discovered for a very low cost at thrift shops.
My shame did not come from fear that people would think I was poor and needed to shop in a thrift shop, it came from once being quite poor and a thrift shop being the only option for clothes, household items, etc.
I put myself through pre-med and then nursing school (when I decided to become a nurse instead of a physician as I had originally planned) when I was in my late teens to my early 20s and I had no disposable income. At one point I was working 40 hours a week (at night as a Home Health Aide) and going to school full-time. It is a long story (related to why my family did not have resources to help me with school) but I obviously made it through (and met Terry, the future “Quilting Husband” while I was in nursing school).
Although we have likely donated thousands of dollars’ worth of no longer used items to charity thrift stores, I refused to shop at thrift stores. To me they represented the poverty I once experienced (and never wanted to experience again), so I stayed away from them. I was all about being able to buy the new things I wanted to buy, when I wanted to buy them (before embracing the Minimalism movement).
A couple of years ago, my a friend introduced me to the fun of discovering cool cheap high quality fabric and antique fabric finds at thrift shops! My sister, who has an excellent sense of style and is a wonderful dresser, also encouraged me to explore thrift shops (She has discovered many incredible inexpensive clothing finds, including “designer” brands). Inspired by my friend and my sister, finally I realized that shopping at thrift stores not only makes good financial sense, but it is very “green”. Instead of items going into a landfill they can be reused by someone else (and the purchase benefits charity organizations – it is a “win-win”).
Concurrently with my sister’s and friend’s influence, over the years my consumerism fueled drive to purchase “new shiny things” has ended. I started to choose experiences over things and realizes new shiny things only bring temporary and fleeting joy. Real joy comes from say a quiet walk in nature or cup of tea with a friend. This is one of the reasons why we have donated likely 30 – 50% of our stuff now to charity organizations.
THRIFT STORE SATURDAY!
So this past Saturday I decided I wanted to go wander around our local thrift store and hunt for fun deals. I had a desire for “Retail Therapy” but in an inexpensive and “green” way. Here is what I found during my Saturday adventure visiting Goodwill, Humane Society Thrift Shop, and the Hospice Thrift Shop (benefiting Central Oregon Hospice).
Goodwill
I know there is some controversy about the Goodwill Industries organization but their mission seems on the surface to be pretty darn wonderful. I spent the first part of the my “Shameless Thrifting” Adventure, wandering around Goodwill.
Shoes! I could not believe how many nice pairs of shoes were at Goodwill at very cheap prices. I am not that into fashion, being a telecommuter and outdoorsy kind of person (I prefer a comfortable outfit and pair of shoes) but if I were I would know where to get lovely designer shoes very cheaply!
After I was done entertaining myself with looking at shoes, I went to visit the fabric section (especially after the find from my last visit – see the post Mysterious Thrift Store Fabric Find).
I did not find anything interesting in the linens and fabric section. However I did return again to the shoe section just browse it for fun; and to think about how much money women spend on new shoes that they only wear for a short period of time. I bet most of the shoes sitting on the shelves of the Women Shoe Section of Goodwill at one time gave some woman a fleeting sense of happiness and temporary “new purchase high”. And now they were sitting on the shelf for $6.99 a pair (note – this Goodwill store appeared to only sell used shoes which were in very good condition).
Humane Society Thrift Store
I left Goodwill empty handed and ventured onto the Humane Society Thrift Store where I entertained myself browsing their used vinyl record collection. While browsing, I stumbled upon this record which brought back some major memories from my childhood:
Yes when I was a pre-teen I was a HUGE Barry Manilow fan. I cannot believe I am admitting this (and putting it in writing), but while some pre-teens were crazy for Michael Jackson or Donny Osmond, I was all about Barry Manilow! I remember the joy of getting a new Barry Manilow record as a kid. (Are you so shocked you have to unfollow my blog now?!?! Can I ever regain your respect?!?!)
A young couple who was browsing in the same section, looked at me with curiosity as I was photographing this record. I can only imagine what they were thinking, ha!
Now, I did not buy the Barry Manilow record. However I did leave the Humane Society Thrift Store with 3 used SAQA Journal Magazines (from 2011 and 2012 before I was a SAQA member) and 5 buttons (for future miniature kimonos). A purchase that totaled $1.
Hospice Thrift Shop
I ended my thrifting adventure at the Hospice Thrift Shop. I did not purchase anything this thrift shop, but I was very entertained looking at their used craft supply section. My favorite item: not only did someone donate their yarn but they must have said “screw it, I am done with this knitting thing” and they donated the piece in progress still on the knitting needles!
Summarizing My Saturday Shameless Thrifting Adventure:
Time spent browsing = 2.5 hours
Money spent = $1
Fun (the thrill of the hunt), giggles, and insight = priceless!
POSTSCRIPT
I do not regret the time in my life when I had little financial resources. It was during this time that I learned to cook as I could make my own food from scratch (much cheaper than purchasing pre-made food). For example, I learned to bake my own bread from discounted flour I bought at wholesale from a food coop I volunteered at (to get wholesale prices on food).
Also I learned at an early age how to budget and manage resources; and also how to stay away from the pitfalls of credit card debt. My life could have been easier by taking out a large school loan but I worked my way through school instead (there was no partying or goofing off during my time in college) so I had a minimal student loan to pay when I graduated (yes and sigh, no wild college parties memories but that is okay).
But most important though, is I learned to appreciate everything I have, as everything I have was earned through my effort and hard work.
Earlier in the week I went to drop off a donation of no longer needed items to one of our local thrift stores.
There was a long line at the “drive thru” drop off donation area (good to see so many people in town making their lives lighter of stuff!), so I decided to park at walk in my donation. After dropping off my donation, since I had already parked, I figured it would not hurt to go into the thrift shop and look around…
Naturally I went directly to the donated fabric section of the thrift shop and after a bit of rummaging discovered a yard of a lovely Asian print I thought would make great kimonos.
I am careful on thrift store fabrics of quilting weight material and always check the manufacturer name on the selvage (end/label area) of the fabric. This print had a name I had never heard of – Watex – but it the fabric felt like a high quality Hoffman Fabrics style Asian print, so I bought it (yes my huge $1.99 investment).
Returning home, I tried to google “Watex” and could not find anything of use other than it appears to be a Japanese fabric and several people were selling “Vintage Watex” on eBay and Etsy. The word “Watex” on the selvage was surrounded by Asian language characters, so I guessed the fabric was manufactured somewhere in Asia.
Below are photos of my fabric find, let me know if you have ever heard of Watex fabrics!
If the fabric’s origins/manufacturer remains a mystery, it will still be great fabric for a future miniature kimono or other project.
This post is a quick follow up to the post Creating… on 07/27/16 where I discussed pulling out from my project pile and completing a set of “art pillow experimentations”.
I spent part of this weekend finishing up the rest of the little art pillows (they range from around 6 x 6 inches to 8 x8 inches for the large one).
Here is the full set of the finished pillows (notice my new tierneycreates labels on each pillow):
Here are the backs of the smaller pillows (made with hand dyed fabric found at a thrift store (it was quite the score!)
I was going list these three pillows on my tierneycreates Etsy shop as a set but I decided to just list them separately (they do look cute together though):
Here are close ups of some of the pillows:
I am posting this on Sunday night but you will likely read this on Monday, so I wish you all a wonderful week, and talk to you later!
I am inspired by her paintings! I might do a little quilt piece inspired by her work.
In Central Oregon we actually have a famous quilter and a well-known painter collaborating on art projects – Jean Wells Keenan (quilter) and Judy Hoiness (painter).
It all began 6 years ago when I attended a neighborhood garage sale and spotted a granny square afghan for $2. I picked it up and studied the amount of work, effort and love that went into making that crocheted blanket. Before I could stop myself, I exclaimed to the seller “Wow, someone put a lot of work into this and you are selling it for only $2? I hope someone does not sell a quilt I made for them for $2!”
The seller/home owner looked at me like I had lost my mind and replied “Well you can pay me more for it if it makes you feel better!” I gave her the $2 and quickly left the garage sale (before my foot reentered my mouth), but this began my obsession with “rescuing” granny square afghans.
I only daydream someday of making a granny square afghan. I have several craft books about making them (does that count?) but I have yet to make one. I so appreciate the work and craft that goes into making one.
The ones in the photo below are from garage sales and thrift stores. My most recent one (in the upper right hand corner) was a gift from a friend that got it for $1 at a thrift store.
Rescued Granny Square Afghans – all safe and loved in my homeI shudder at the thought that maybe one day one of my quilts that I spent months making (as I am sure these granny square afghans took to make) will be on sale for $1 – $2 at a thrift store or garage sale. Of course all crafters have to remember: Once you give someone a handmade item as a gift, you have to let it release it emotionally – you have no control over what happens to it next. (It took me awhile to learn this lesson).
As long as they do not become clutter in my home (just how many granny square afghans would be considered “clutter”?), I will keep “rescuing” beautiful granny square afghans and giving them the love and appreciation they deserve!
If you have followed my blog for awhile, then you know about my addiction to fabric scraps. This addiction seems to be incompatible with my desire to downsize and minimize my possessions.
The fabric scrap addiction began innocently enough – friends would give me their fabric scraps at quilting retreats. I would go for a “sew day” at a fellow quilter’s house and leave with some of her fabric scraps. As if that was not enough, I began to actually BUY scraps.
Yes, BUY FABRIC SCRAPS, you read correctly. There is a wonderful quilt shop in Central Oregon called The Stitchin’ Post and occasionally they would sell scraps bags of their beautiful high-end quilting fabrics. I bought numerous bags from them.
Beautiful scraps or not, still I was buying fabric scraps.
In my post “Creative Inspiration: Organization???” I shared my new organization of my favorite fabric scraps by color. Although I had organized scraps by color I still had a GIANT box of remaining fabric scraps.
I knew I had to do something. I needed to let go of the fabric scraps I did not completely and absolutely love. However, I did not want to throw them away or try to convince another quilter to adopt them.
So I packaged them up into 30 bags and organized them into two baskets and DONATED them to our local Humane Society Thrift Store to sell! (How do I know that the Humane Society Thrift Store sells fabric scraps? Do you want to take a guess? Yes, because I have bought fabric scraps also from several thrift stores include the Humane Society Thrift Store in the past).
The Humane Society Thrift Store Volunteer accepting my donation seemed pleased that I had packaged them up for sale. I like to imagine if they sell each bag for a couple dollars or more each that could be over $90 – $150+ profit for a wonderful local animal shelter! Some of the bags are packaged by color and some are random – so many options for the Humane Society Thrift Shops’ customers!
A “Humane” way to let go of excess fabric scraps!
When I buy fabric from quilt shops in the future, it will be actual whole fabric (fat quarters or yardage). I still have plenty of fabric scraps and my fabric scrap collection contains only scraps I truly love and plan to use…eventually.
POSTSCRIPT
I am still working through the lessons from the book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo that I discussed in the post “The Space in Which We Live“.
Inside this bag was a large collection of fabrics by a company called 
The package included yardage, precuts (charm squares and fat quarters), a panel (a Moda Fabrics panel) and some odd size fabric scraps.
The pictures above do not do the package as there is enough fabric for several quilts (there are at least 10+ yards of fabric among the yardage).
In addition to this book, if you win this giveaway you will also get a little wallet in your choice of color:
I need to focus on preparing for the quilt retreat I am attending later this week, so I am not going to play with the new fabrics and the design wall right now but it is something fun to look forward to add more to the “simmering”!
tierneycreates 