Oodles and oodles

My own little Miracle on 34th Street

You have no idea how I've been sweating this.

I could make an educated guess about the beginning of the yard sale season, but any number of things could have happened. Maybe the word wouldn't get around to people having sales, who are pretty critical to this whole operation. Or maybe this year would be a repeat of last year, when on this date we were still shoveling out from a 20-inch snowfall.

So I was a little nervous when I brought the paper in this morning and opened the classified section. And here's what I saw:



The season is starting just when I thought it would! It's here! It's here!

This is where you can picture little Natalie Wood in "Miracle on 34th Street" when she finds the house of her dreams and knows Santa is real, and she clicks her heels and cries, "He is real! He is real!"

And there's a sale this morning. It's like getting to open one gift on Christmas Eve.

*I told you the number of exclamation points would increase as the week goes on. I think we've hit the max: 5!!!!!

How April 18 became the first day of the yard sale season

There are two explanations as to how April 18 (just three days from now!!!!) was designated the first day of Yard Sale Season in Central New York: the short one, and the long one.

1. The Short One: Because I said it was.

2. The Long One: Because April 15 is generally accepted as the date when the long-suffering people here can expect spring weather to stick around on a fairly consistent basis. So, if you wanted to figure out the opening day of Yard Sale Season in your area, you simply would need to determine the date when the pretty good weather starts, check your calendar, choose the first Friday after that date but only if it is not Good Friday, and designate that your Opening Day. (If the first Friday turns out to be Good Friday, of course, then we have a delayed opening, and the YSS opener is the following Friday. Got that?)

To my knowledge no one else had officially designated the opening day here, so I did. (Oh, the power of blogging!) And since it's wildly unlikely that anyone where you live has bothered to think about this, you too can set the date for your area! You don't have to check around, or ask permission. Just do it!

It's helpful to have a little vintage calendar (50 cents) to assist in this task.

9 p.m. addition: You guys are pretty observant! Tara left a comment asking whether there were 30 days in April, and I couldn't figure out why - and then I noticed the calendar has 31 days! I figured a picture is the best way to explain how this calendar works - there are different day and date pages to match up with the month pages ...

and to minimize the number of possible day and date combinations, there are just 31 days on each of them. It looks really odd in February! (Then again, haven't we all wanted an extra day in the month now and then?) 

Show and Tell Sunday, and 5 days to go!!!*

Happy Show and Tell Sunday! Good thing we don't have to pick one particular vintage handkerchief that we like the best, because I'd have a hard time choosing. I'm pretty fond of anything that's white on white ... all that cutwork and lace and embroidery.



But I love those crocheted and tatted ones, too, and my great-grandmother's collection of tiny spools of crochet thread and impossibly thin crochet hooks.



I had never seen a handkerchief card like this until a woman sent me one as a thank-you for doing an apron show at a local museum. I think it's the cleverest thing ever. I may try to replicate something like this for Karla's project to collect 100 handmade cards for her aunt's 100th birthday (and she still needs a few, the last I heard, so go help her out!)



So the reason my dad's graduation picture is here is that when he and my mom ...



were about to get married, the neighborhood ladies had a hanky shower for her. I love that idea ... that everybody just gets together and brings something so simple and sweet for the bride-to-be.  So if I were picking favorites, I'd pick these, because these are some of the ones she received:



Big, bright, flowery ones. I think this one looks like Cath Kidston could have designed it:

Some of these pretty old handkerchiefs have become tattered over the years, but I still find it hard to part with them. I've been trying  to use them a little more in projects, like this shadowbox some of you might have seen a few weeks ago:

I used the scalloped border of a handkerchief to create a picket fence. I used another part of the handkerchief for another shadowbox which is this close to being finished. Maybe I'll get it done tonight. Meanwhile, I've gotta go see everybody else's handkerchiefs and go to - wait til you hear! - a pie party! This is shaping up to be a good day. Hope yours is, too.

Show and Tell Sunday, kitty edition

I've owned cats forever, and Patch for a good seven years ... but it still never ceases to amaze me how they manage to arrange themselves to the best advantage in every situation (especially when their owner is trying to get her pictures finished for Show and Tell Sunday)!

Saturday pre-season scouting report, 6 days to go*

I buy boxes and baskets of sewing stuff just for the sheer pleasure of sorting through it. My all-time best auction buy was purchasing the entire contents of a sewing room for $10. It took weeks to sort through all of that. That's not likely to ever happen again. Today I contented myself with buying a clothes basket filled with sewing what-nots for $8.

I couldn't exactly see what was inside it (the sale was in a tiny and very crowded house) but it looked promising enough to take a chance. So here's what was inside:

Patterns for doll clothes.

Oodles of pom-poms, including those fringed pom-poms-on-steroids that I'm really starting to like. And the orange and yellow will be great for Halloween projects.

More rick-rack and braid and some pretty rose appliques.

Bias tape and eyelet and pretty trims. And the best find, but the most boring picture:

An enormous roll of white seam binding! A lifetime supply!



I bought these little bunny egg cups, too. We're still in Easter mode because we celebrate Greek Easter with our friends on April 27. (Not that you should ever choose your friends by their ethnicity, but you've still got time to befriend someone who celebrates Greek Easter, and you might really want to, because it's fabulous.)  Oh, one more picture.

Not that you needed a closeup, but I had one more thing to mention and wanted a photo. Several of you have asked about the official start of Yard Sale Season, which, as you might remember, is Friday, April 18, in Central New York. I will explain how that date came to be in a couple of days, but I need to take a picture with a little calendar in it, and I haven't done that yet. I hope all of you are having a splendid weekend!

*that's how many days are left to the first day of Yard Sale Season!!! The number of exclamation points will increase as the week goes on, I'm sure.

A dollar or less, and one week!!! to go*

Today's dollar-or-less find makes me think that maybe life used to be more fun. It's my $1 card table cover, which is a nice match for a Swanky Swig and a Jadite vase. (I did not pay much for the vase, but unlike the bowl, it was more than 15 cents.) (And I can't stand wrinkled tablecloths, but this one is made of something petrochemical based and not easy to iron. But easy to wipe clean.)



I loved the colors and the print and, of course, the price, but I think what drew me to it was the label.



Not to romanticize a time that had some definite downsides, but I wouldn't have minded that part of the era that meant a weekly card game with the girls. And needing to own a card table, and a "Play 'n Serve" reversible card table cover, and those cute little cookie cutters that come in the shape of hearts, spades, clubs and diamonds. At least I've got the card table cover, and probably a few of the cookie cutters.



As for the weekly card game? That's not going to happen any time soon. But my group of pals and I manage every couple of months to carve out a few  hours for coffee. Most of our kids have known each other since nursery school, and our discussions have progressed from playground problems to prom dates. So even if we don't get together as often as we'd like, we've got the group part down, and that's the main thing.

*counting down the days to the official beginning of the yard sale season on April 18th. There are a few sales this weekend, but a handful of sales does not represent the season-opener. It's more of a spring training to get in shape.

A dollar or less, 9 days to go*

If something is green and vintage and kitchen-y, there's a good chance I'll buy it. If something is green and vintage and kitchen-y and less than a dollar, there's a very good chance I'll buy it. If something is green and vintage and kitchen-y and Jadite, I definitely will want to buy it  -- but there's a very good chance I won't because it will cost a lot more than I want to spend. And I am pretty much always willing to spend a lot more than a dollar on Jadite.

But every once in a while, the forces converge, and an otherwise not-very-promising yard sale brings something green AND vintage AND kitchen-y AND Jadite AND less than a dollar. I usually don't keep price tags. But sometimes, when you want to remember a moment of good fortune, you just have to.

* counting down the days to the yard sale season with finds that cost a dollar or less

A Field Guide to Millinery Flowers

It's Show and Tell Sunday! For more millinery flowers, hats, hatboxes and other pretty things, visit Show and Tell Sunday co-hostesses Cerri at Little Pink Studio and Analise at Sugar*Sugar.

 

A dollar or less, and 13 days to go*

It's really hard to get something at an auction for a dollar. Auctioneers never want to start the bidding that low, and even if they do, there's always somebody who will bid against you just for sport.



So when the auctioneer said "Anybody gotta buck for this table?" and I was the only one who raised my card, I knew one of two things had to be true. Either there was something really wrong with the table, or everybody else was missing the boat.



To be fair, the original paint job was somewhat lacking. But I thought there was a kind of great folk-art quality to the table. See what it's made out of? The top and the shelf look like the ends of a fruit crate.



And the spindles are little blocks of wood alternating with wooden spools that were threaded on a metal rod. Forty-four wooden spools, to be exact. I had time to look when I was painting today.



When I was done, I finally had my answer. I think everybody else was missing the boat.


* counting down the days to the yard sale season with finds that cost a dollar or less

More spring cleaning, and 15 days to go*

I never mind making a run to our town dump, or as our local leaders would like us to call it, the "transfer station." I felt quite liberated the other day as I tipped a heavy box of papers into the recycling pit. It was filled with my son's homework papers from three years ago. I kept thinking he might have a nostalgic attachment to them, or that someday he might want to review his eighth-grade social studies packet. As it turns out, he did not.



Aside from its practical function, the "transfer station" also provides a bit of entertainment. It's called the Swap Shop. That's where to take things that you no longer want but are too embarrassed to donate to the thrift store. Not surprisingly, I contribute quite a bit to the Swap Shop. Also not surprisingly, I have on occasion come home with someone else's contribution to the Swap Shop.



That's where my magazine rack came from. I thought it was adorable. And free! I had planned to paint it, but then I kind of fell in love with its bumps and nicks and that nice deep vintage red. More spring cleaning awaits today. With any luck, I'll need to visit the transfer station.

*15 days until the start of the yard sale season!