Oodles and oodles

Spring flings

Finally I can say something I've been wanting to say for months.

I went to a good estate sale!

Friday's estate sale was sort of like one of those warmish days you get in spring - really, it's not that great, but after a long winter, you'll take what you can get. There were lots of cute toys there, and all of these are already in Etsy or will be on eBay by Monday night. More on my business-first attitude in a moment.

First, let's take a moment to admire the Renwal The Little Hospital Nursery Set. Cute in its own weird little way, and not in a way that tempts me to keep it.

There was a little Christmas, but it was somewhat disorganized, so I wasn't quite sure what I had until I got home.

What I had were bubble lights. In my many years of Christmas collecting, do you know how many times I've bought bubble lights? Until Friday, never. I overcame my fear of vintage electrical items and tested these. They work. I'm happy.

Also in the box was an adorable parachute toy. See his silk parachute in the sack on his back?

Since the sale was nearby, I returned later in the day and picked up this colorful top. It's adorable, but I have no need of vintage nursery decorations. It did serve to amuse the pets briefly, however.

I picked up another box of Christmas jumble and found what everybody finds in boxes of Christmas jumble: glass bead garland, tiny glass ornaments, bottle brush trees, and a glittery bird that needs a beak transplant.

Also, one of those dangly wreath ornaments that I just adore. The foil has worn off the paper mache bells in places, and underneath is newspaper with Japanese characters. It's the paper mache equivalent of patina.

I also found a Halloween noisemaker. Any day that brings a Halloween noisemaker is a good one.

On Saturday morning, I woke up early and headed to Parts Unknown, N.Y. It would have been a very nice day except for a few things.

1. I got outbid on a fabulous box of feedsacks. However, I knew I was going to get outbid, so I bid it up to $490 and stopped. Honestly, it was a fabulous box, but not $500 worth of fabulous.

2. I got outbid on a fabulous collection of apron patterns. However, once again, I knew I was going to get outbid, so I went to $190 and stopped.

3. On the way home, I had the comfort of not being $680 poorer. I have to say, it's not quite as much fun as spending wads of money. But it made a lot more sense business-wise. I probably could have recouped my investment. But it would have been close. And I would have had a lot of money tied up in inventory in the meantime. See? It's the new businesslike me!

4. Also, it was a good thing I was not distracted by being $680 poorer, because I got rather lost on the way home (my phone, and thus the GPS, died) and I was forced to rely on my marginal navigational skills. In a driving rainstorm. In heavy traffic, in sections. But I got home safe and sound. 90 minutes later than I should have, but safe and sound.

I did buy some things I liked, including a huge recipe collection. (I don't quite know why, but there is money to be made on recipe collections.)

Nine or ten boxes worth. If there's a particular recipe you're looking for, there's a pretty good chance I have it. (That sounds dangerously close to me offering to look up recipes for you. Here's a better idea: Use the Internet.)

And while everyone else was buzzing over the feedsack and the apron patterns, I and I alone spotted the big box o' Christmas. And got it for almost nothing.

There were more ornaments in it than I thought.

Quite a few more.

Well, you get the idea.

How many days is it until next weekend? I'm ready to start all over again.

 

 
 

If at first you don't succeed ...

After last week's dispiriting sale, I figured this week had to be better. It was. Much, much better. In one stop I hit all of my major collecting categories, here, Jadite and fun housewares. The blocks and the farm basket are going to Etsy, but the rest is mine, mine, all mine. (I get greedy after a long winter.)

There also were buttons (no need for sorting!)

Some of the cards are heavenly.

Just heavenly.

And a box full of fabric squares, many of them feedsack. What more could I ask for?

Well, Christmas. All of which was found in the boxes of free stuff. The best thing about the free stuff, apart from the attractive pricing, was that there were lots of boxes of it, and not too many people going through them. (I got there pretty early.) Everyone who was looking seemed to be looking for different kinds of things. Nobody wanted the Christmas. There was a nice couple who seemed to be assembling basic items for a household. Silverware and whatnot. It made me think fondly of The Boxcar Children books, and how much I loved the part where they make a little home out of the things they've found.

There were so many plates that they weren't particularly interested in the non-matching, old and pretty ones, so I got them.

(I should add they were not quite this pristine when I first saw them.)

Tally-ho! Or whatever those fox-hunter people say. There's a fox hunt that goes through my neighborhood every year or so, but it probably doesn't surprise you that I'm not part of the fox-hunting crowd. (And they don't hunt real foxes. They kind of pretend. It's complicated. But the outfits and the horses are pretty nice.)

My favorite freebie was a tiny German doll. Her outfit needs a little work, but the green knee socks (a little hard to see) and the gingham skirt are staying.

Finally, there was a free Santa whatever-thing.

Who can keep company with the Santa bells and salt and pepper shakers I acquired at a barn sale Friday. All in all, not a bad weekend.




 

 

 

Hibernation

On Friday I did several things I haven't done for quite some time.

I took cash out of my bank account.

I was on the road before sunrise.

I signed up for an estate sale. Fun sale! the advertisement promised.

There were a few newcomers to the usual crowd. One was a man who stood on the sidewalk and yelled questions to people. To me, standing by the basement window, he called "Anything good in the basement?" I did not wish to engage with him, so I shrugged. It was a friendly sort of shrug, but a shrug nonetheless.

As I waited, I made several resolutions about the sale season ahead. This year, I'm not going to make any buying mistakes. Not a one. Also, I'm going to treat everyone with dignity and respect. But I'm not answering questions yelled to me from the sidewalk. Mostly I'm going to keep my mouth shut, my head down and my eyes open.

Finally the magic moment came, and we went into the house. I explored it top to bottom, several times. Mostly because I was trying to figure out what possibly could be considered fun about this sale. It was the dullest collection of merchandise I have seen in some time. If there were glasses, they were clear. If there were clothes, they were white or beige. There even was a collection of doll clothes, and they were white and beige.

I found three objects, two of which are too boring even to mention. I stood in line in front of another newcomer to the crowd. She complained incessantly. By incessantly, I mean without ceasing. Why is the line so long? Why is the line moving so slowly? Why are the clerks so slow? This degree of grumpiness has an odd effect on me. It makes me aggressively cheerful. Perky, even. Why, look! We're moving ahead! It's not so bad! This made her even grumpier. Game on.

And thus another sale season opens. For this, I emerged from my winter hibernation. The one object not too boring to mention is the jadite/jadeite scotty dog on a rocker. (One of my resolutions is to worry less about spelling jadite/jadeite.) The rocker serves as an ink blotter, if one wanted to attach blotter paper to it. I did not know such a thing existed, but now I have one.

I'm going back in my cozy den now. If I venture out again, I'll let you know.

 

Heartfelt notions

Another Valentines Day arrives, and still I have not made this skirt to wear to my friend's annual tea party.

Nor will I be sporting this apron.

If there's to be a sewing theme for today, it will have to be with a vintage valentine.

Or two.

Happy Valentines Day, friends!


 

Upcycling

I've been sorting through vintage patterns lately, a few at a time - if you look up the word "tedious" in the dictionary, you'll discover a sentence that explains how to use the word: "Checking vintage patterns to see that they have all of their pieces is very, very tedious." However, the super-cute illustrations keep me going, and I especially like this one. I somehow feel it might be depicting the early stages of a toddler rumble. Like the girl in pink is telling the boy in blue that he wouldn't have fallen if he'd been more careful, and the toddler in white wants her to stop being so bossy. But I digress.

What was odd about this pattern was the inset photo in the corner, with a little girl wearing an oversized shirt. (If you look very carefully, you'll notice she's holding her fingers as if she were holding a cigarette. Extremely disturbing, but apparently she's pretending to be her dad.)

That's because the pattern was designed to be cut out of a man's shirt. The cutting diagrams on the inside show how to lay the pattern pieces on a buttoned shirt to take advantage of the ready-made buttons and buttonholes. That's how the overalls, with the buttons up the side, are made. Just adorable, and a timesaver, too. I'm picturing them in plaid flannel myself.

I thought the pattern might date to the World War II era, and the date on the flap confirmed it.

Sweet, isn't it? (Except for that child pretending to smoke.)

Thank you for the input on bows vs. spools. Fortunately I do not have to decide, because a nice person bought two sets of the blocks from my Etsy shop, and it's up to her. However, I'm taken enough with the pattern, a little different than the diagonal bow tie pattern I've favored in the past, that I would like to try to make some. I don't know if I need more hours in the day, or more days in the week. Probably both. 

 

Any way you look at it

A snow day for me, hurray! Once I finished the work I'd brought home to do, I was free to spend my day doing one of my favorite things: recreational ironing. Some people might say I should get out more, but really: I couldn't. I was snowed in.

These little hand-stitched quilt blocks were just the thing for a snowy day.

But they did leave me with one question.

Should they go this way, so they look like spools of thread?

Or this way, so they look like bows?

Either way you look at them, they're pretty great.

Pyrex Saturday

I've been a little worker bee lately, so I had a good plan for Saturday. Go to an estate sale (not because it sounded great - Hummels and silverplate - but because it was the first sale in ages), then come home and putz around. Maybe cook. Maybe bake. Maybe do something to the living room which has essentially remained bare since the Christmas decorations went down. A lazy Saturday.

I saw a lot of people I hadn't seen all winter at the sale. That's a good thing - that I hadn't seen them all winter, I mean. There are a few people at sales that I'm happy to see, and a few more that I have a nodding acquaintance with, but for the most part there are unpleasant, pushy men. The only good thing about unpleasant, pushy men is that they tend not to go for Pyrex, so I got the refrigerator set above. And I thought, you know, I should list that right now, because it would be easy.

Knowing that it's easier to list things that are similar all at one time, I thought I'd get out some pink Pyrex that I bought a long time ago.

These bowls looked so pretty with the pink and the green, I thought I might as well get them out, too.

These were stored in the same area, and since I had kind of a housewares thing going, I got them out. (There are five others ... cute set. They'd look awesome in my kitchen.)

Once you have the Pyrex out, you might as well go all the way and get out the Fire King and Anchor Hocking cousins.

I washed the pieces up and lovingly photographed them and thought how I've never been really crazy about these Kimberly mugs, but I do like these blue ones.

And how if I had a lot of space, I'd just keep everything. It snowed, and then it rained, and because it was so cloudy I guess I didn't notice how late it was.

Before I knew it, it was time to think about dinner. My lazy Saturday was gone. I hadn't had time to be lazy, and that made me kind of sad. But at least I spent the day with Pyrex.

 
 

Just my type

Found while sorting valentines this weekend.

(It is was in my Etsy shop. But only because I had to buy a new refrigerator this weekend.)

Put a cat in it

My daughter (a big fan of cats) and I were lazing around Sunday morning. I was scrolling through Pinterest and found a photo of a cute cat with a hat. I showed my daughter, who said, "awwwwwww." Seconds later, I found a photo of two cute cats, each with a scarf on their head, which also elicited an "awwwwwww." And mere seconds after that, I came across a photo of two cute cats with some sort of upside-down basket things on their head. Well, I know a trend when I see one.

And thus my Pinterest board, Cats With Things on Their Head, was created. In a matter of hours, it had more than 100 followers. Which in my tiny corner of the Pinterest world is a lot. You are all familiar with the Portlandia skit, Put a Bird on It. My new mantra is Put a Cat in It.

So as I was taking photos for Etsy this morning before heading off to work (so ambitious!), I thought, poor plain boring Etsy photo. I'm going to put a cat in you. Multiple cats! Cats in the Strombecker bathroom! Cats on the Strombecker chair! On the fireplace mantle!

On the stereo!

A bad cat in the kitchen, accompanied by an I'm Being Good cat.

Then it occurred to me that if I placed cats in my Etsy photos, I would have to sell the cats. I did not want to sell the cats.

But there is nothing stopping me from creating the Pinterest board Miniature Cats with Miniature Furniture.

Redecorated

The Christmas decorations are put away, and there's a theme to what is replacing them.

It's not a red metal toy theme.

It's not a red Swanky Swig theme.

{Even though there's a red Swanky Swig sporting its original label - the first I've found!}

Nope, it's a keep-it-colorful-in-here-because-we're-ignoring-the-weather-forecast theme. If you're in one of those chilly areas, stay warm. If you're not, be thankful!