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Recently, as in this morning. When I decided to tackle a bin of feedsack remnants I toted home from that big feedsack auction. The remnants that were folded up and rolled into bundles and secured with rubber bands.
Not only were there lots of pretty ones ...
but most of them turned out to be full-sized feedsacks.
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When I first started going to auctions and estate sales, you couldn't touch depression glass. The prices were out of sight: $50 for a cracker jar with a chipped lid, for example. I remember because I was outbid on it, and boy, am I glad. I found one later in better shape for half that price. The prices have tanked even since then. I probably could find my cracker jar for less now, but since I've used it about every day for at least five years, I figure my cost per day is 1.4 cents (I did the math) and going down daily. (That's a good way to justify spending money on something you want, by the way - the cost per use.) (It doesn't work on things like wedding gowns and weekend trips to Europe, should either of those expenditures be in your future.)
Even so, I was surprised, when I went to the third day of an estate sale Saturday, how much perfectly good, already cheap depression glass was left. I bought only a few pieces, because I really don't collect it (honest!), but the green looks nice with Jadite. Since it was the third day of the sale, everything was half price.
So this Hazel Atlas serving bowl was less than you'd pay for a plastic bowl at Target.
As to why these two cups and three saucers, originally marked a very reasonable $5, were still there after two full days of shopping, I can't explain. Jadite, out of style? I can only hope.
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This little glass cow ...
and this little glass horse may be the first vintage objects I owned. I had them as a child, and they've moved with me everywhere I've lived. They were favors from birthday parties for my mom and my uncle, whose June birthdays were eight days apart. They're from the mid 1940s, and my mom thinks they were from the year she and her family were moving from Pittsburgh to a farm in western Pennsylvania - hence the farm animal theme.
(As an aside, I think my mother's childhood is the stuff of children's books: She lived in Pittsburgh with her brother, their parents and grandparents and a pony in the back yard. As soon as World War II ended, they left the city for the farm. My mom went from city living to a farm without electricity, from trolley cars to a one-room school. She thought it was a great adventure.)
Anyway, with this much history invested in these two little glass animals, you can imagine how happy I was, at a sale on Saturday, to find companions for them.
A goose.
A rooster.
A squirrel.
And a bird with a nest. It was labeled as a "salt," and it sure looks like one, although if the other glass animals were party favors, maybe the bird was, too. (The nest would look pretty sweet with little candies in it.)
For now they're living on the dining room windowsill, and when the sun catches them, they remind me of my mom, her magical childhood, and a time when even birthday party favors could last through a few generations.
p.s. The magical random number generator chose Poppy K. as the winner of the feedsack! Thanks to all for the feedsack love.
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It's hard to beat flowers in pink: lantana, geraniums, snapdragons, zinnias.
Petunias, daylilies, phlox, dianthus.
In cotton, appliqued and quilted.
Then blanket-stitched.
With a puff of a yellow center.
Probably my best find Saturday. Probably in Etsy Monday if my willpower holds out. No guarantees on that.
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I bought this yo-yo quilt earlier this year with the intention of re-selling it. It didn't cost too terribly much because there were many broken threads and even a few missing pieces, and when the auctioneer held it up, it looked tattered and sad.
(As an aside, the auctioneer referred to it as a lollipop quilt. Sweet.)
I spent two full days with the quilt stretched out across the dining room table, looking for spots that needed to be repaired, then fixing them.
I made lots of replacement yo-yos. In fact, at some point I thought it would probably be easier to make a yo-yo quilt from scratch than it would be to repair one. Then I roughly calculated how long it would take me, at my top speed of 8 yo-yos an hour, to make a quilt. I went back to repairing.
But it seemed as if every time I thought all the repairs were finished, I found another spot that needed to be stitched. And I realized that every time the quilt was handled, more threads seemed to break. I didn't want to sell something that was in the process of self-destructing. (Most of the fabric is fine; the threads seem to be the problem.) And I'd be happy to keep it, but I don't really have a place for it here. (If unfolding a quilt results in damage, imagine what a 70-pound dog jumping up on it could do.) So I did what I think any of you would do. I folded it up and put it in a closet and I'll figure out what to do with it some other time.
On to other problem projects. I got quite enthused about these tiny hexagons a few months back, and I even began sewing them together to make ... something. I hadn't quite decided what. I thought the vintage percale was the perfect shade of green for the project, so I dove in. I failed to calculate, however, how many of those little green hexagons I would need. And, naturally, I only had about a quarter-yard of green fabric. So until I come across a piece that perfectly matches it, this whatever-it-is is on hold.
Today I was trying to take feedsack photos for Etsy, and I had the hardest time figuring out what squares looked good together. It occurred to me that I was only taking Etsy photos - I wasn't making something that would take weeks and last for generations. I wondered how quilters ever got beyond the picking-fabric-out stage.
Quilters, I salute you. If you have words of wisdom, please share them. But until I'm convinced otherwise, I think I'll stick to finding things, and leave the making things up to the pros.
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When I woke up today, my first thought was not, "I wonder how many 6-inch squares of feedsack I got at that auction?" but "What can I do to keep cool in my non-air-conditioned house?" Sorting through all of those feedsack squares seemed to be a pretty low-impact activity, and it needed to be done, and now I can answer the question as to how many squares I have.
It's too hot to make you guess, so I'll just tell you. At least 2,500.
They had been washed, cut and sorted into packages by their previous owner, but there was no rhyme or reason to the packages. I started sorting them by color.
It took a long time.
I sorted out the ugly ones. I don't know what to do with ugly feedsack. It's feedsack, after all. But it's ugly.
Some of the squares I loved right away.
Others I didn't love so much.
But somehow when they were all together they brought out the best in each other.
I can always tell I like something when I start taking lots of closeups.
Anyway, it's embarrassing to have this much fabric and not give some of it away. Let's have a feedsack giveaway! Leave me a comment here or on my Facebook page by Sunday night. If you're the winner, I'll send you a package of pretty feedsack squares. None of the uglies, I promise.
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Let's see: two solid weeks of work preparing for parties, a party weekend, followed by a week of hosting family - that adds up to taking the rest of the summer off, doesn't it? I wish I were one of those people who could multitask, and then I'd have taken blogworthy photos of the two graduation parties, followed by two birthday cakes for two of my favorite people (my son and my mom), and the anniversary celebration (my parents, 56 years!), and Father's Day - but I'm not. Needless to say, there's been no junking. There's been a fair amount of cleaning, cooking, yard work and gardening, which has given my idle mind time to consider life's great questions. I posed this one to myself: If I could do only one, what would it be: gardening or junking?
Every morning I go out to the garden, and there's something new waiting for me. Like peas. Only twice in my life (when my husband brought home tablecloths from a friend, and when my neighbor dropped off some awesome metal porch furniture) have I awakened to new junk. Advantage: gardening.
I make money selling junk. I spend money on gardening. Advantage: junking.
Some flowers are self-sowing and produce multitudes of offspring with no intervention or effort on my part. The same, sadly, cannot be said of Shiny Brites, Jadite or vintage tablecloths. Advantage: gardening.
I can eat what I grow in the garden: in this case, lettuce, arugula and sage. I can eat junk food, but I cannot eat junk. Advantage: gardening.
Unforeseen events can ruin the garden: hail, pests, drought. Bad things can happen with junk: stains don't come out, a Swanky Swig gets chipped, the dog stands too close to the Christmas tree and wags his tail vigorously. I think this one's a tie.
I have seriously injured myself gardening. In fact, I took up junking during a long period when my back was such a wreck that I really couldn't garden. Now, however, thanks to modern medicine, I can do both! But I don't think I've ever been disabled from junking. Advantage: junking.
If you don't hurt yourself, however, gardening builds serious strength and burns calories. As for junking, two words: Auction food. Advantage: gardening.
Gardening improves my mood. (Did you know that there is bacteria in soil that has been shown in experiments to mimic the effect of Prozac? Good times!) From time to time I have experienced a junker's high, but I have to admit, it's fleeting. Advantage: gardening.
If I had to pick, right now I'd pick gardening. At the same time, I'm pretty glad I've got plans to go to a few sales at the end of the week. Most of all, I'm glad I don't have to choose.
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Saturday morning's estate sale was just what I needed: a quick sale nearby with just enough fun stuff to make me happy. There was a great tablecloth in excellent condition, a stack of bandanas (which always are reliable sellers) and some good additions to the Santa collection.
Just when I thought the Santa collection was complete, I found these three, all of which are new to me. The pull-toy Santa turns out to be pretty valuable as far as mid-century plastic Santa figures go (more valuable than skiing Santa, not as valuable as motorcycle Santa), and I haven't found a reference yet for the roly-poly Santa. The fellow at right is a candy container with an open sack.
I bought a junky dollar box of ornaments for the parrot light bulb but found some German paper ornaments that open to hide a present, and a light bulb shaped like a watch.
I don't know if I love the watch because it was a surprise or because it's adorable, but I do love it.
I'd have loved this game if only for the treasure-chest box design, but it was filled with cards, numbers printed on wooden discs, and square pieces of glass for markers. Because my husband and I were home Saturday night, paralyzed with the kind of fear that overtakes parents when their 18-year-old daughter takes the car out with her friends for the first time, we played a round. "You can say we played this on your blog," he suggested helpfully. "You can say it was fun." Consider it done, dear.
Because I'm such a fan of quantity, this bolt of vintage toweling is probably my favorite find. Right up there with the watch and the pull-toy Santa at least.
I have no idea how many yards of fabric must be on here, but I'm pretty sure there were entire departments of corporations dedicated to coming up with fun names for their products.
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The winner of Mary Kay Andrews' new book 'Spring Fever' is Sula in Georgia! Thanks to everyone who left a comment here and on Facebook. For those of you interested in details: There were 82 entries, and I used a random number generator to choose the winner. (I did not photograph the process, because it was not visually compelling, and I was trying to get it done before 'Mad Men' came on, and good thing! That was some episode! Not that you couldn't see it coming, but still ...)
If the rain ever stops, I'll post some photos of my estate sale finds from Saturday morning. There's just one (not very good) photo of one of my favorites on Facebook, but more to come here ...
Happy Monday, and thanks to all for your entries and nice comments.
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