Oodles and oodles

If you leave now, you can be here by 8 a.m. Saturday

I am so ready for my sale on Saturday. 

I am so ready to turn all of this excess into cash.

I keep finding things I'm willing to get rid of. The pets scramble when they see me coming.

Some of you have requested photos. Some of you have specifically asked for me not to post photos. I didn't think a photo of random salt and pepper shakers would cause any undue pain, so I'll leave it at that.

If you want to see more photos, you can check my ad on Craigslist http://syracuse.craigslist.org/gms/3224086704.html . Or you can look at what Linda bought.

I'm off to the bank for change. I'll let you know how it goes. With the sale, I mean. I'm expecting the trip to the bank to go smoothly.

 

Serendipity

So I'm at the Bouckville show last week, and I'm meeting Gina for lunch, and we're doing one of those classic maneuvers in which we call each other on our cell phones and try to figure out where to meet for lunch when if we'd each of us just looked directly across the street we would have seen each other talking on our cell phones. So meeting was only a matter of me crossing the street.

Which was fortunate because our path to lunch took us past a booth with boxes of Shiny Brites, so we stopped. And I was quickly ready to move on because the price tag on a pretty ordinary striped Shiny Brite was $7, which would make them $84 a dozen, which is a whole lot more than even the most devoted collector would pay.

But it was as if at that very moment the dealer decided to go out of the Christmas ornament business because she said all of the ornaments were a dollar. One dollar. So Gina and I got busy. We were in the right time at the right place.

The woman selling the ornaments mentioned that she had lost interest in them as she got more interested in jewelry. As luck would have it, I happened to have a vintage bracelet in my purse. I had been carrying it around for months with the intention of selling it sometime when the mood struck. I produced the bracelet from my purse. I asked the woman if she liked it. She did. So we traded the bracelet for some of the ornaments.

It all felt quite meant to be.

 

Today in feedsack #6: pink duckling pajamas

When we last visited, I left you with this snippet of feedsack.

Which had been made into one-piece pajamas.

Complete with feedsack facings.

Flat-felled seams (even on the armholes!)

And a back opening for after-bedtime trips to the bathroom.

About the cutest thing ever.

My $1, all-you-can-buy, early-bird special, friends and family sale

You may not be surprised to learn I have a great deal of stuff.

I don't want some of this stuff any more. It's too good to donate, but it's stuff I don't feel like listing or shipping.

I was thinking I would have an all-vintage, all $1 sale this coming weekend.

Then I thought I would invite my friends to come Thursday night and get first dibs. But that somehow didn't seem fair. (Even though I'm sure it happens all the time.)

So THEN I thought I would invite my friends to come Sunday afternoon and pick out whatever they wanted. Before I advertised the sale. And then that would be fair.

So if you want to come Sunday, say 11ish or after, and buy anything you want for $1, come on down (or over, or up).

If you need directions, e-mail me: brstith (at) verizon.net.

If you want to come Monday and have a time in mind, that's fine.

Christmas, sewing, crafts, kitcheny things, paint by numbers, lots of picture frames - you know the kind of stuff I have.

Get in touch if you're interested. Or if you think I need a mental health intervention.

 

Best ever

This year's Madison-Bouckville Antique Week has been the best ever, in my book: good times meeting up with Gina, good finds and good prices. I had a pretty specific shopping list, and of course, feedsack was on it. Not plentiful, and not easy to find, but pretty.

Definitely worth the hunt.

I picked up buttons wherever I found them inexpensively, and I was a little surprised how many I found tucked in my bag at the end of the day.

Hundreds!

This butterfly is a bit of an illusion. It's not appliqued onto the feedsack underneath.

It's a needle case.

And best of all? The week's not over yet. And you haven't seen the sweetest feedsack creation ever ... but here's a little bit of it. 

Two's a charm

It's a quiet weekend for sales around here because every antique dealer in upstate New York is getting ready for the Madison-Bouckville antique show this week. I managed to eke out a few finds, though, and everything seemed to come in pairs. I found a pair of wire desk baskets (in back), and a pair of skiing Santas. I found only one Putz house, but it's identical to the last one I found, so it's sort of a pair.

I found a pair of yo-yo pillows, which I bought to resell. Then I changed my mind.

Not going to miss an opportunity for a yo-yo closeup.

These little pieces are a little bit of a mystery. The fabric is beautiful, and the bias tape finishing is perfect. I thought they were children's aprons. Then I noticed that one piece has a little strip of bias on the center of the yoke, and the other one doesn't, which makes me think they're a front and back. What do you think? I'm guessing a pinafore of some sort. Maybe that buttoned at the top and the sides, and it only needed buttons and buttonholes to finish. Personally, I love to make buttonholes, but not everyone feels that way, so maybe that's what kept them from being finished. Let me know your ideas.

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Naturally, I found two sets of them. Not knowing exactly what something is does not keep me from buying one. Or two.

Finally, I found a pair of fuzzy chick corsages.

Not going to miss the opportunity for a fuzzy chick closeup, either.

And then we have this: a pair of dogs.

I did not take leave of my senses and get another dog. I took only partial leave of them and offered to keep our friends' mutt Charlie while they're away for the week. He spent the first six hours here pacing and standing at the window with his little paws on the windowsill looking for his people. Then he was over it. Done. He loves us now.

He and Carson worked together to make a fluffy bed on the sofa. I think he's feeling quite at home now.

Sunshine

Orange and purple flowers.

Flowered teapots.

Row upon row of bias tape.

The competition is fierce, but this apron has to at least be a contender for the Best Vintage Apron ever.

Although the fabric on the other two aprons that came home with me Thursday was pretty great, too.

And since lately it seems a day without a new feedsack is like a day without sunshine,

I have not one, not two,

but three new feedsacks. This one being the pattern that's in the quilt I got in Ohio. This sack being one I wanted but didn't get. What are the chances of that? I'm feeling beyond lucky.

A good couple of weeks

It's been a good couple of weeks for vintage dishtowels.

A good couple of weeks for floral tablecloths.

A good couple of weeks for ornaments.

A good couple of weeks for feedsack. The gray one is a full sack, the stripes have been made into curtains, and I think but I'm not 100 percent sure the little blue outfit is feedsack. Whatever it is, it's really cute. So's the dress, which was stamped on fabric, collar, buttons and all. (This is the first sale where I was able to spot a piece of feedsack from a distance. It was kind of exciting.)

(Actually it's been a really good couple of weeks for vintage towels.)

In addition to the usual suspects, I also rounded up a few tins filled with tatting thread and a Magpie-Ethel sized stash of chenille stems.

And this really pretty length of quilted fabric that's already in my Etsy shop.

All of this came from the first sale I went to Saturday. The next two were duds. But it's good that I went to them, because in that odd way that you sometimes end up where you're supposed to be, I ended up having a conversation with someone about feedsack. And that person had just seen some, and she told me where to find it, and I did. Just a few pieces, but enough to confirm the fact it's been a really, really good couple of weeks.

 

Instant collection

Went to one of my favorite sales of the year Saturday. Always lots of fun things there. But the find I liked the best was this ...

A little box filled with curtain tie backs. Like jewelry for a window.

The green flowers? Definitely keepers.

And the wooden shoes? I think they're keepers, too. Fortunately, it's a collection that doesn't take a lot of space.

More tomorrow - happy rest-of-the-weekend!

 

When life gives you a flawed tablecloth

I found this Wilendur poppy tablecloth at the estate sale last week.

Along with six matching napkins. I immediately went into wonder-what-I-can-sell-this-for mode. It looked like it was in great shape - lots of body and no fading and no big stains.

Alas, as I was ironing it, I found a few light stains. And a pinhole.

Well, I certainly can't sell it like that, so I have to keep it.

In other news, I am on my own for a few days. Mr. Oodles and Miss Oodles are off on a father-daughter adventure. They're having a great time.

Don't tell them, but so am I. I ate cherries for lunch. I had a Drumstick (the ice cream kind, not the turkey kind) for dinner last night. I didn't clean up my sewing stuff because maybe I'll feel like sewing again later. I didn't make the bed. There are dishes in the sink. Not many, though, because cherries and a Drumstick don't make a lot of dirty dishes.

I'll be happy to see them when they get back. But I'll try to make the best of things until they do.