Skip navigation

Tag Archives: charity shopping

Thrift Friday

Fabulous week thrifting….found metres and metres of vintage and current

fabric. That is metres of each! The aqua with lilac flowers is a flat

cotton which appears to be a vintage sheet from the fifties. Wow!!!

Thrift Friday

The orange/ peach rose is a chintz patterned strippy

and measures 150cm x 250 and was $4!!!!

blue chintz

The cream with blue bouquets is a chintz and

was about three metres for $5.

Charles Parsons Thrift Find!!

The green and gold scrolls by Charles Parsons was $4.50

for each piece and there were two pieces.

001

003

Last but not least the little embroidered dressing table set was $2.70 and the

floral dress fabric is as new for two metres for $1.80 [it is currently in Spotlight]

School holidays over here so we had the pleasure of showing my young friend Daniel of quilt fame the movie Terminator..he is 13 now so after starting him off on Star Wars, Indiana Jones and many others we thought he might like to see the Terminator films in case he happened to catch the series and needed to know where it all began. I remember being petrified of the machine as he/it just kept coming when I saw it twenty years ago. Now it was the dilemma of time travelling that got to me. It stood the test of time though cinematically, must say James Cameron is a genius.

We went shopping yesterday and bought some things on sale. A chef’s trolley to store all my saucepans etc and some lovely butterfly cups and saucers which will also come in handy for my photography. I also bought the last two seasons of the Gilmore Girls on sale as Foxtel keeps going back to the beginning instead of showing them and channel 9 of our free tv decided to put it on at 3pm on Sundays with no advertising so I missed too much of it to know what happened after Rory left Yale etc and went to live with her dastardly grandparents breaking Loralies heart in the process. Whew, feel like I need to draw breath.

My groups are doing well, oh did I not mention that we now have three groups on flickr? Fabric patchwork and quilting in the home and fabric patchwork and quilting reclaimed. I have long been interested in layouts of rooms using quilts cushions etc so we now have a wonderful place to showcase the actual quilts as they are meant to be used…you might even like it as it is more what you do with the quilts than how they are made. the reclaimed group is to showcase work made using at least 50% recycled fabrics and trim.

This week I found two lovely white and silver items while charity shopping. One is a lovely little box with a mirrored inside which I am using to store my new jewellery set of hall marked silver and a brand new photo frame. In a different shop I found a silk georgette evening coat which is sublime. The box was $5 and the frame $10 and the coat$8 and the jewellery $15 all told…..$38

I am going to start putting up photos of some of the quilt tops I have recently finished as I need a little help deciding whether to have them as quilts or tablecloths or duvet covers…please please please give me feedback, I would really appreciate it. Also going to showcase once a month past quilts I have made with the stories behind them for those of you who have come here in the hope that it is a craft blog! I have been aiming for a mixed kind of blog as I find craft blogs fairly boring especially when the issues of the day are often totally ignored and everything is hunky dory in blogland…..it isn’t in life so why should it be in our blogs? I have come to really enjoy the blogs where the writer slowly reveals small things about themselves, not the woe is me day after day kind of thing, just little things so that you don’t feel you are in Stepford land. I have also found memes to be a good way of opening things up a bit so look out for the two memes that I am participating in this week thanks to Janey and Sulz, two perfect examples of fiesty women who never bore!

Interesting week as I branched out into unknown territory after a newspaper article showed a subversive party being held in a church. Got my first insulting comment from someone who left a link back to a porn site and also my first comment including a bible verse. So both ends of the spectrum. And in the middle was Justin who led me through the whole debacle and assured me that the church council shared my concerns and outrage.

So I will soon be getting back to sewing as it is cooling off here now and am feeling more inspired after I had the brilliant idea of cataloging my fabrics so that I would know what I have available in storage. I am now in the middle of photographing everything, no small task, and in the process am rolling up my really rare samples of chintz etc which should prevent them wearing on the folds. I saw somewhere online recently where a quilt shop was selling plastic holders to store your fabric on [much like the cardboard that the quilting fabric is wrapped around] but for now am going with gift wrap rolls and will eventually make my own from cardboard. I sent some of the fabric photos off to some of the flickr fabric groups as love to browse there myself. To see my fabrics just click on the more photos under the flickr photos in the sidebar, if there is anything you like or want and need to have for your quilts just email me through my contact page.

Speaking of flickr I had an email yesterday informing me that I have been banned from the quilts and quilting pool. Am baffled as to what I did wrong as checked the group rules and there was nothing there. So I sent off a request for clarification to the quilts and quilting administrators as advised by flickr as they have no idea either. Also asked why if I had done something wrong nobody had informed me. The manner that I was informed left a lot to be desired, I pride myself on straight talking but guess that some people leave the dirty work to others.

I had always been uncertain about that particular group as my quilts are more throws really with very little actual quilting, and that quilting done in large, though neat stitching in the more modern style. The reason I do larger stitches is that I have quite a lot of pain in my nerves in my hands and spine and this is a way that I found hurt less and allowed me to still feel like I am a quilter. After this debacle with that flickr group pool though I am glad to have found some other groups recently where the emphasis is on crafting and the joy of crafting in all its forms. I particularly like the fabric groups as think they are a little touched like myself with fabric madness and I like their style! The groups I have been joining at present however I am asking in the group discussions if my photos are appropriate to the group rules or more importantly their unwritten rules. The real reason that I was disturbed over the quilts and quilting pool is that through this group I have met many wonderful women who like myself have had to give up so much fine work and in some cases their health is so fragile that I shudder to think what their reaction would be to them being summarily banned without warning or explanation.

I had fun this week thrift shopping though we had a shorter shopping week, which could be why I am a day behind with this post! The handbag is a mid size and am very happy to have found it as love purple and as you know patchwork. The two little glasses are glorious and am sure my mum had some like them in the sixties. The necklace is stunning and works really well with my tans and browns and burnt orange clothes. That Liberty fabric shirt is actually a mans, can you believe it? The polaroid sunglasses are my third purple pair that I have found!

I am also really happy to be spending less as am not shopping at my local store anymore and instead of $50 a week am now spending around $25/$30 and any money that I have over shall go towards products from indie designers. Realised a little late I know, that thrift shopping in itself is not the answer to over production of goods, that if more consumers bought good quality homemade items they would have to shop less as will have what they want and the product should last longer. And in the process be helping small home businesses like Janey’s and Katherine’s and Kara’s and for that matter my own.

Speaking of small indie businesses my handbag from Janey arrived and it is stunning. She had it up on her etsy store for ages and it did not sell and have no idea why as it is so well crafted. Thank you so much Janey, not only s she gorgeous folks she is truly a lovely human being with a feisty personality and blog. Pop over and say hello to her sometime, you won’t regret it. I have put up a photo of myself showing off Janey’s bag, this is a rare photo for me as for some reason the camera seems to make me look like a dead eyed zombie. Think its because I try to pretend that the old nerves and things aren’t hurting but the camera knows, it is all knowing. Maybe the Native American Indians were right when they thought the photo took their soul. If so then all the people at the Vodka O party are in real trouble. Sorry couldn’t resist it, promise I will be back to some sewing blogs soon, this expose stuff is starting to get to me. Have a great week.

This week I found a really lovely powder compact, think I had one given to me for my 18th birthday by my parents. This is in good condition with some kind of a bird on it, maybe a pheasant. Also was lucky today to find a pair of flat shoes…after returning those high heels last week I was in need of a replacement…..and these were a great colour too in suede.

The earrings are very 80s and go well against the shoes….I am trying to stop matching everything up but old habits die really really hard. My husband found me the lovely butterfly mirrored compact and it has a magnifying mirror as well, as if a normal one isn’t torture to the over 50 woman. Actually it is a godsend as I don’t have to put my glasses on to apply mascara….never figured out how to do that.

The oriental dressing gown is from last year but a lot of people have been asking about it as I wore it to commemorate my first blog post. Also found a Vera Wang formal skirt with the label still attached and $900 on it!!! It is an American size 4 or Australian size12 which are really popular sizes so don’t know whether to sell it or keep it for one of my son’s friend’s eventual weddings, was thinking of making a hand beaded bustier to go with it. I looked on EBay and I had no idea that her clothes are so popular for weddings.

Saving the best for last…..today the local charity shop was getting rid of two lots of fabric, probably cause it stank so much and think it may be barkcloth from the 60s or 70s. Cannot believe it because it is a fabric Kara loves to use in her hand made bags. There is about two metres of each piece of fabric and after I emailed Kara to tell her about it I washed it as it gave me a headache and a runny nose! But it will be worth it if the smell will eventually come out, hard to describe the smell, not mothballs, more like something dusty magnified by ten thousand…if that makes sense.

Okay now for the bit that one normally does not discuss as it is just well, not done, in polite circles. Of course thrift is different everyone wants to know the price and if you haggled etc. I don’t haggle as it is for charity but I do hold my breath when I discover a real bargain. The Vera Wang was an exception as I felt morally obligated to tell the manager that I thought their price was too low. He however had not heard of Vera Wang and so the price remained. I gave them until the next day and as it was still that price I bought it.

So the powder compact was $8, the shoes also $8, then the earrings were $6, the dressing gown was $10 and the Vera Wang was……$12.00 [remember it had $900.00 on the label]

The fabric was a freebie…although I started itching while I was writing that!

By the way I have an update on my Hillary on Kaffe scoop, felt like a real journalist when I researched this, found out through Liza that the quilt was from a Kaffe kit and was made by the mother of a doctor at the Child Study Centre Yale
where Hillary used to do volunteer work when she was young. The doctor has it on the wall in his/her office and the CBS people asked if they could use the room for filming. So it was not orchestrated, she was in that suit and the television people obviously thought, wow, and the rest is history. Can you imagine the pride of that mother, apparently she adored sewing it and was so excited and then one day this happened. So you never know where your quilts might end up or the joy they may bring to others than the intended recipient. Thank you so much Liza for being so kind as to let me know and it was a real joy for me to be involved in “the search for the quilt!”

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.