Estate Sale Finds

Part of my weekly habit is checking Estatesales.net for local estate sales.  I'm kind of addicted to looking at the homes and seeing what treasures people had.  Some sales are very organized and some are just a wreck.  I have my favorite vendors whose sales I never miss like Richard Bloomquist, and others that I have totally sworn off.

If the sales are really close, I will often go on my lunch hour on a Friday.  Just to scope things out and see if it's worth getting up early on Saturday to come back for half-price day.

Last week on Friday I ran to 2 sales.  One had a quilt pictured in their ad so that always interests me.  And it was obvious from other pictures that she was a quilter.  So I went.  There were a couple of well worn pink and white quilts there.   I wasn't sure I could resell them at the price they were marked so I decided that I might come back on Saturday. 

Luckly they were still there.  So I decided what to heck.  Get them.  I was disappointed that the bigger multi color broken star which that had been pictured in the ad was gone.  But as I was looking down at a table of glassware something caught my eye. Looking up, there were 2 great quilts hung over the drapery rod in the living room.  I had completely missed them and so had other quilters who were there.  While looking, one of the guys running the sale asked if I was interested.  I said not at even half the price he had marked on them.  So he gave me his bottom price and after some thinking I decided why not.  A quick run to the credit union and I walked away with 4 quilts.

The pink and white will be for sale in my booth at the Capitol City Quilt Guild Quilt Show, May 4 & 5.  As well as the broken star quilt.  My brother and I will be sharing a booth selling sewing and quilting related items, some antique, some just collectable.  [NOTE: as I edit this I realize that maybe the print quilt was a practice before making the multi color quilt because the are the same pattern only one is solid pink fabrics and the other is multi.]

The wagon wheel quilt I think will be a good research project for me.  It has hundreds of names embroidered on it in the same hand and fine embroidery.  Since I am a genealogist it will be interesting to research.

Busy Times

Things have really been hopping lately. Late last month I took mom to the CCQG quilt retreat here in Lansing as a Christmas gift.  She had been to one of our small group retreat at Hankerd Inn, but that is usually 12 or less people.  The CCQG retreat was 69 ladies at the Quality Suites Hotel.  The set up was great and the hotel staff were very accommodating. We were set up in the atrium and the three floors that opened onto the atrium gave us a great place to put quilts as there were finished.  All the hotel guests appreciated and enjoyed the impromptu quilt show as well. We decided that we would spend the weekend working on one project, the wedding quilt for my youngest niece.  And we got it done and not a moment too soon as she just got engaged on a trip to Paris.  Great job Jason!

Have been picking up more items for my booth at the CCQG quilt show in May.  I am going to have mostly antique sewing related items.  I will have a couple antique quilts and a few modern quilts for sale.  Will also have items I have been picking up at estate sales, like a large batch of old iron embroidery transfers.  These really remind me of the transfers my mom used to teach me embroidery when I was a girl scout.

I will also be thinning out my collection of sewing related items, mostly pincushions.  Will also have a couple of sewing machines for sale.

Spend some time a a friend's home last night going through bins of sewing related items that she has collected and then decided to thin her collections.  I think I picked up some good things.

Now I am working on coming up with a way to hang a bunch of quilts.  Think I have come up with an idea using pvc pipe.  Will have to experiment one of these weekends.

Have a good weekend.  Spring is just around the corner!