Oodles and oodles

I'll do it in September

We moved into our house 17 years ago this weekend. In our little cluster of four houses on a rural road, we are the new people.

The fact that one of the neighbors has sold their house and a new couple is moving in is a huge deal. Earthshaking. Everything could change. Like: What if they want to socialize? What if they're nosy? What if they play loud music? So much to worry about, out here where we keep to ourselves and don't call the neighbors unless we get stuck in a snowdrift or have extra tomatoes to share.

"They're moving in in September," my next-door neighbor reported.

Phew, I thought. That gives me some time to wrap my mind around this development.

A few hours later, it occurred to me: September is tomorrow.

And it's not just new neighbors I need to worry about (although I don't think I have to worry about them much, because the neighbors who are selling their house have been spending winters in Florida and I didn't even notice, because we really do mind our own business here.)

It's everything else I said I'd do in September. Clean, organize, paint, make spaghetti sauce, freeze vegetables, and most especially, get going on selling some of the stuff I've been collecting all summer. I didn't list anything on eBay this summer - too much else going on. My Etsy shop has been on vacation status for months, and as I've cheerfully told everyone who inquired, I'm reopening it in September.

Which would be, you know: Tomorrow. I have a lot of work to do.

 

Some of it I quite enjoy. Like washing and ironing yo-yos.

 

Some of the work is somewhat enjoyable but a little tedious, like measuring all of these remnants of lace that someone bought and never used - never even removed the price tags.

 

Some of it is just tedious. Like taking pictures of a zigzag attachment.

 

I'm tackling the eBay listings first. Hoping to have some items begin on Monday. (My seller name is kremisclub, and you can always search for my stuff that way.)

 

Etsy will be not quite yet. (There are 30 days in the month, after all.)

 

I will not allow myself to become distracted by yo-yo washing and ironing.

 

Or looking through this bag of fabric.

 

(Well, one little look wouldn't hurt.)

OK, that's all. Seriously. It's back to zigzag attachments for me.

 

 

A positive development

 
I set out Saturday morning with one destination in mind, the monthly flea market on the lawn of an antique store about 10 miles down the road. Sometimes I find things there, sometimes I don't, but it's always a beautiful drive. This week, though, there were a handful of yard sales along the way, at least some of which had been planned to take advantage of flea-market traffic, and my mind swirled with possibilities. What if this idea caught on, and once a month I could just drive down the road and happen upon lots of sales? Wouldn't that be great?

I realized after I took photos and put everything away that I had the wrong setting on my camera, so you'll have to make do with some narrative instead of photos. In front are a corner shelf and a needlepoint scene which some people might find tacky but that I think is charming. In the second row are a folk-art cloth doll, a handmade doll cradle, some green things (more on them in a second), a die-cast truck, a collection of cotton rickrack, a ball-shaped orange juice pitcher, and some old school books. Behind them all are the classic Wilendur rose tablecloth and a wonderful quilt.

 
This is by no means the most valuable thing I found, but I adore it. It was the spotted cow that got me. I also like the chickens (near the cow) and the wash on the line (at left.) These colors don't go in my house at all, so I'll be popping this on Etsy at some point, but in the meantime I can enjoy it.

 
Here are the green things. They came from an unexpectedly excellent yard sale. I don't know what they are, but I was taken with the color and patina (and, it goes without saying, a very low price). I'm guessing they are some kind of spooly yarn-winding kinds of things, but I'm not sure. They could be hat racks, but they don't have a very good center of gravity for hat-holding. Any ideas?

Talking about them makes me feel like whipping out the aprons.

 

Close to home, with no logistical planning required.

More sales and more finds than I had hoped. The excellent yard sale was my first stop, and I had doubts about it as soon as I arrived. The house was absolutely stunning, a beautiful cottage down a wooded drive on a prime piece of lakefront. My experience with such sales is that they have a lot of elegant, way overpriced stuff for sale, and not the old stuff I crave. But it was there I found the quilt, the green things, and this:

 
A wonderful Victorian photo album. I've never bought one before because they're always priced out of my reach. This one was so reasonable that I looked a couple of times at the price tag to make sure I wasn't missing a zero or misplacing a decimal point somewhere.

 
It's chockablock full of great old photos.

 

 
The quilt was a fun find, too. The woman having the sale said she found it in an Adirondack cabin her family purchased more than 30 years ago.

 
This is not a quilt I'd have left behind in a cabin.

 
  
 
There are just four different fabrics in the eight-pointed star, all in that wonderful, clear-blue color that I associate with 1930s fabrics.

 
Same with the sashing fabric. Blue like Adirondack lakes and skies.

 
And the backing fabric!

 
I love this print so much I'm not sure which side of the quilt I like best.

 
An apron for a quilt that makes my heart beat faster.

 An apron for good finds all around.

A four-apron morning. And a pretty good weekend of sales.


 



 
 



 

 

 

The pros and cons of community yard sales

 
I am not a fan of community/streetwide/neighborhood/highway yard sales. I believe I've stated before that they only encourage people who should not have sales to have them. Nonetheless, I put aside my objections this morning because I happened across a sale last year that I liked a lot, and the man running it said he usually participated in the townwide sale. Which began today.

Using the patented apron rating system, let's review the negatives of the community yard sale tradition:

  

They attract crowds.

The merchandise consists largely of toys and baby clothes.

Generally a lot of driving for little return.

Did I mention how many strollers, Little Tikes play sets and piles of tiny clothes I saw today?

 
On the positive side, however, you can find a set of very sturdy maple chairs to paint white over the winter, and they'll cost almost nothing.

 

 

And at the same sale you can find a nice pair of matching corner shelves.

(which cost even less than the chairs.)

 
Not to mention old, deeply indented Christmas ornaments.

(for loose change.)

 
And even though you can't find the sale you originally wanted to go to, you find another sale which doesn't look like much, except it has nice vintage glassware for 10 cents.

 
And you rediscover the thrill of the 10-cent Swanky Swig.

(Two aprons. There were two 10-cent Swanky Swigs.)

Eventually you face facts and realize you're not going to find the sale you originally set out to find, and you stop back at the sale with the chairs, because you'd arranged to pick them up later. And you mention the sale you were looking for, and miraculously, the people think they know who you're talking about, because it is, after all, a community yard sale. And even though you already drove down that road and didn't see it, you figure you might as well look again because it's on your way home. And miraculously, there's a big flag by the side of the road that says "open," and you stop, and it turns out they opened about one minute before you arrived, and that's why you didn't see it before.

(an apron for serendipity.)

 
And the reason you liked the sale last year was because they had quirky stuff. 

 
Like old real estate signs.

 
There are more, but you get the idea.

 
Which, in the final analysis, leaves us with 7 aprons, minus 4 negative aprons, for a total of three aprons.

Which, as community yard sales go, is a pretty good morning.














 
 

 

In hiding

 
This summer has been a little heavy on the obligations and appointments, so when I haven't been in the car (68 percent of my time), in a waiting room or lobby of some sort (37 percent), filling out paperwork (42 percent) or changing and washing sheets in anticipation of overnight guests (29 percent), I hide in the garden.

(I know. My numbers add up to 176 percent. That's why I'm hiding.)

 
I'm very glad I didn't sell this enamelware pot because it is just the right size for a meal's worth of vegetables.

 
It's not nearly big enough for the cucumber crop, however.

I haven't been to any sales lately. Well, one. The woman organizing the sale was pretty clear that it was small, but it was right in my neighborhood, so I dropped in.

 
I bought this wheelbarrow for practically nothing. I love garden things, and I love red, and I love handmade wood things, so I love everything about this wheelbarrow. I've parked it, for photographic purposes, in the butternut squash patch. I've never grown butternut squash before. So far, so good.

 
Turns out the wheelbarrow is just the right size for all those cucumbers.

I wanted to get the vegetables picked because Thursday's going to be a rainy, blustery day. I think it will be a good day to make pickles. There's not much better than a satisfying project on a rainy day.

 
And there's nothing better than zinnias in a Mason jar.

Odd ducks

 
We've had a lot of trouble in our neighborhood the last few days.

 
It has to do with ducks.

 
They've been blockading our road.

 
They aren't letting anybody through without a fuss. No one knows quite why they're there. They aren't crossing the road. There's nothing in particular for them to eat there. They just stand there. For hours at a time. Sometimes for so long they sit down and fall asleep.

 
Today's flock was a little smaller. I hope it has to do with the rain and not, you know, casualties. Even when they confine themselves to a smaller area, however, we're reduced to one-lane traffic. Drivers have been very good-natured about the delay. They laugh; they shrug. Some people, once they get through, turn around and go back to take a picture.

 
At some moment understood by the ducks but not me, they move off the road and line up nicely by the gate on the farm lane.

 
One by one, they, for lack of a better term, duck under the gate. If they went side by side they could get through a lot quicker, but they seem to prefer it this way.

 
They quack among themselves and start walking back the lane to their pond, probably half a mile away.

 
I don't think this sign applies to them.

That's what I like about living out here. Nothing ever really happens, but there's always something happening.

 
 


 

 

Some garden shout-outs

 
August usually is the month that I look around the garden, sigh, and think that next year I'll do better.

 
At the risk of sounding obnoxious: This year, I'm looking at the garden and thinking that next year will be even better. Despite a late start due to a soggy spring, baking heat in July and, the last couple of days, torrential downpours, the vegetables this year really flourished. It's weed-free (almost) and chemical-free (completely), and I think it's going to produce enough to give us lots of lovely organic vegetables through much of the winter.

 
Still hoping a few vines will climb their way up the side of the arbor, but even if they don't, the rudbeckia makes a nice companion.

 
Part out of necessity, and part out of stubborness, I wanted the garden to be my project and my project alone this summer. So when I look at the little stone path, I don't think so much about the fact that it's a little uneven. I think I did that.

 
The view the bunnies get, when they hop up from the meadow.

A really magical thing happened last evening when I was walking the dogs. (My Carson, and Ferris from next door, who always comes along). Just as we walked down one side of the garden, the sweetest fawn came skipping out of the meadow and paused at the other side of the garden. I've never seen a fawn that close. It was speckled and perfectly spindly. It looked at us, kind of perplexed, until Ferris barked, and the fawn realized it probably shouldn't hang out with dogs. I like to think we helped it learn an important life lesson.

 
The cutting bed in the center, with peppers and onions in the foreground. Have you ever found a packet of seeds from the year before and wondered if they were worth planting?

 
That's what happened with me and the zinnias. (Benary's Giant, from Johnny's Selected Seeds.) I'd say go ahead and plant them.

 
Definitely plant them.

 
The cosmos often reseed themselves, but this year they needed to be refreshed.

 
This tomato is trying to kill me. I have been watching it ripen v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y all summer. It's an heirloom, 'Gold Medal,' and I think it's just about ready.

 
If that tomato doesn't do me in, the blackberries will. We finally have a pretty decent crop of them, but they're very content being pink.

 
Much as I'd like to take all of the credit for the garden, I realize an effort like this needs a few willing volunteers. So let's hear it for the love-in-a-mist, which year after year reseeds itself.

 
And for the cherry tomatoes, which spring forth from the compost every year, and this year have filled an entire 8-by-12 foot raised bed. (I gave them a bed this year. Why buy plants when these are so eager to grow?)

 
The volunteer dill gets a special mention this year. Even though I planted dill, the volunteers matured exactly when I needed fresh dill for refrigerator pickles. Thanks, dill!

 
And the garden wouldn't be possible without bees. Or toads. The bee didn't like being photographed, but the toads absolutely refused.

 
See that chair up yonder, framed by the arbor? All summer long I've been looking at it and thinking about the evening when I would sit in it and admire the garden instead of working in it.

Hasn't happened yet.





 

 

 

 
 

A quick Saturday sale

 
One quick estate sale for me Saturday morning, and I found one thing I really love. It's not a Swanky Swig.

 
It's a canister set with Swanky Swig style.

 
While I was there, I picked up a bundle of crocheted items. Not much for doilies, but the holly berries are pretty endearing, and you can't have too many red and white pinafores.

 
There also was a tiny cup-and-saucer favor.

 
And a crocheted piece that most definitely is an antimacassar, because of the tassels on just one edge. (If you didn't already know this, macassar was an oily hair product, and an antimacassar keeps the oil off the furniture.)

On the subject of cleaning, I'm off to whip this house into shape, jump in my car, race to Pennsylvania, pick up my parents and drive back with them tomorrow. Although I'm not looking forward to spending 10 to 12 hours over the next 36 hours in a car, I'm very excited to have my parents visit. Blogging this week will depend on their behavior. I expect to have my hands full, but maybe they'll surprise me.

Shoot, it's been so long since I've been to a sale that I forgot to rate it!

I found only a few things, but I was in and out in half an hour, I spent next to nothing, and despite being an unenviable #27 on the list, so many people ahead of me didn't show up that I got right in.

We'll give it a two. Not spectacular, but good enough for this weekend's compressed schedule.   


 
 

Chapter 9: Handkerchiefs

 
I did not mean to buy this.

 
(And if you're asking yourself, my goodness, is she still posting stuff from that auction weeks ago? the answer is yes. But I'm almost done.)

 
I ended up with these ladies' handkerchiefs because I thought I was bidding on a box of children's handkerchiefs. Rookie mistake. I was not happy with myself.

 
These are the handkerchiefs I meant to buy. There were printed ones.

 
Ones with big appliques.

 
Some with small appliques.

 
Scotties!

 
And a set with little embroidered animals.

 
Even if they were an accidental purchase, the ladies' handkerchiefs are very pretty.

 
And in just about perfect condition.

 
Like this set of monogrammed linen handkerchiefs. I know only one person with the initials AMB, and by odd coincidence, that person is my congresswoman. I'm not particularly inclined to give her anything. Other than a piece of my mind.

 
But if you're looking for a great deal on handkerchiefs, and your initials are AMB, let me know. As long as you're not a member of Congress, that is.

 



 

Taking that first snip

 
It's so hard to cut into a piece of vintage fabric.

 
Even when I know exactly what I want to do with it. Even though I have just what I need for the project, including the vintage bias tape.

But I know that I'll see this fabric more if I make something with it than if I keep it folded up and stored away. And so I get out the scissors and unfold the fabric.

 
And I see this, and I waver. Original label. I love a good original label.

But I've come this far. And I don't need that much fabric. And so I forge ahead.

 
I get out a frame purchased at a house sale earlier this year.

 
Project complete, I hang it up.

Maybe you see a picture on the wall. I see the first step in my recovery from a serious case of VFH.

Vintage fabric hoarding. 

 

,

 

 

Fabric makes everything better {almost}

 
As appliances go, dishwashers are the best, second perhaps only to a coffee maker. Sadly, our dishwasher died. Every couple of days, I check on it, as if a little rest might fix whatever's wrong with it. (What's wrong with it is old age.) I turn the knob to "wash," and it makes an unhappy sound much like the sound my children make should I attempt to wake them too early, kind of a low, unresponsive moan.

While we wait for a new dishwasher to arrive, I attempt to cheer myself up by setting the table with dishes I don't use often because I don't want to hand-wash them.

 
The table is pretty. But I miss my dishwasher.

 
I wouldn't mind the oven breaking down right around now. (It only does that on Thanksgiving.) I would be very happy to shrug and say, "Gee, I'd love to make something for dinner, but I can't cook. The oven's broken." Only one small burner on the stove would work, just long enough for me to boil water for iced tea. This is my broken-appliance fantasy.

 
I make excellent iced tea, just the way my mom does, but I'm not telling you how. Know why? Because nobody wants to know how a Northerner makes iced tea. I like my tea, but if you need advice, you'll feel better asking somebody Down South.

 
All of this table-setting and washing-up made me think about tablecloths, and I got it in my mind that I needed an oilcloth one, so I bought one yard of this laminated fabric (from the Nicey Jane collection by Heather Bailey for Westminster) and IT IS THE BEST YARD OF NONVINTAGE FABRIC I EVER HAVE PURCHASED. Yes, it's all-capital-letters good. It doesn't need to be ironed to look good! It doesn't need to be washed! It only needs to be wiped off. It's almost a miracle.

 
The dishwasher suddenly springing back to life: that would be an actual miracle.