Estate Sale Finds

For me estate sales are almost addictive.  Seeing the treasures that people have.  What I find interesting compared to other people.  I have been taking some of the girls from work who haven't every really been to estate sales before.  I find myself explaining a lot: why I chose particular items, either for myself or to resell or what certain items are.  I am splitting my finds between my fleamarket stash and one I have started of items I will have in my booth at the CCQG quilt show in May.  Here are a few of the items:

This little guy may stay with me.  Love that blue & white

 

 

Got this cute 1 cup tea pot yesterday.

 

I think this is a match holder.

At Christmas Wendy got a small christmas tree made on a styrofoam cone.  She thought it would look better on a pedastal so I made this one from a candle holder and small plate for her.

In following quilter Bonnie Hunter and my friend, Carol, I have become hooked on recycling men's 100% cotton shirts.  I have found at Goodwill they are $3.69 each, where as at Volunteers of American they are $1.99 and up. And it only recently occurred to me to look at estate sales for them.  I usually don't look at clothing. I have been "de-boning" them as Bonnie shows on her webpage.  These are a few of the candidates I picked up this week.

I plan of making up bags of fronts and sleeves of maybe 5 shirts for my booth at the quilt show.  Will also be selling the buttons that come off the shirts.  I am keeping the backs for quilt backs and have been using the cuffs and collar pieces to make strippy blocks to use in a quilt.  I recently also found a wonderful old travel iron that is small and heavy which will also be at the quilt show in addition to a couple of sewing machines that I have picked up.  Still need to prep them to be sure that they are ready to go.

As I sit here listening to the sleet beat on the windows I wonder what travel to work tomorrow will be like.  Have a good evening





 

 

 

Christmas Quilts

This has been a busy last few weeks.  I had started Bonnie Hunter's Easy Street Mystery, but an a step behind now.  But I'm off until after New Years and hope to get a good piece of sewing time in.  This will be a busy Christmas.  I know I have never gifted so many quilts at one time before.

My maternal grandmother tried to make quilts for each of her grand children when we graduated from high school.  And being there were 40+ she really had her work cut out for her.  Since I am single and have no children, I decided to carry on this tradition with my nephew and 3 nieces.

Darryl being the oldest got the first graduation quilt.  Being a boy I wasn't sure he would have an appreciation for a quilt, so I made him a long twin, where as the girls got full size quilts.  This weekend Darryl was home for the holidays from Chicago.  He had been hinting that his quilt needed a little help.  So I told him to bring it along and we would have a look at it.  For being 14 years old, it has been well loved.  Mostly the binding needs replacing and the back and a few fabrics on the front will need a little patching but that is all doable.

Darryl has been married over a year now and I felt he was due a proper quilt.  My mother made he and Anna an embroidered quilt for the wedding.  I had been working on one as well but didn't want to over shadow grandma's quilt so I mainly work on it at retreats.  I decided this year to get it done and off my list.  My wonderful friend and machine quilter, Wendy Paskus quilted it for me.  Between my mom and I, we got it bound so that I could give it to them Sunday before they returned to Chicago.

In addition to Darryl's quilt I had decided to make quilts for my great niece and nephew, Molly and Jack.  I have had Jack's quilt done for a couple of months, but decided I should make one for Molly as well so that they would each get a quilt.  After quilting Darryl's quilt, Wendy went to work on Molly's.  I got Molly's quilt on Thursday and worked all day Saturday to get the binding on.  So these were both delivered on Christmas eve at great Grandma's home.

 

 

 

 

 

Now back to Easy Street mystery.

 

Easy Street Step 3

Well, this is where I start falling behind.  I still have 50+ of step too to still done.  But just remembered that Bonnie suggested doing what you can of each step  and catch up later.  I have time off between Christmas and New Years and hope to get a good deal of sewing done.  But may also have 2 quilts to bind before Christmas if I get them back.

The other hiccup is that Saturday night while I was relaxing and web surfing someone kicked in my front storm door.  By the time I got over the shock and checked things out they were long gone. But that puts me in a position where I really don't like to go down in the basement to sew.  I found yesterday I didn't mind being down there during daylight, but in the evening I want to be in a defendable position if need me.  Some times I get sooo mad about this kind of s**t.

Well, tonight is Charm Christmas and tomorrow night is Variable Star Christmas. 

Will worry about the new door when I'm off between Christmas and New Years.  At least this is the end of the year and not the beginning.

Easy Street Part 2

The 2nd set on instructions came out for Easy Street on Friday.  Today after the Pline family Christmas I started on it.  Making flying geese is one of my least favorite units to make.  But I decided to try Bonnie's technique and see if they turned out any better.

I bought both rulers that she recommended and went at it.  But still have troubles with them not turning out well.  I know part of the problem is hanging on to them too tightly when I put them through the sewing machine  After the first 10 they seemed to turn out better.  But my saving grace was the "Mini Fit to be Geese" ruler I got for my previous small group mystery.  The ruler is  from Open Gate at www.opengatequilts.com.  It really helps me true these up. 

So for now I have gotten started on them and will see how it goes until next Friday's instructions come out.

Pline Christmas

Today was the Pline Christmas party.  My mother is the second oldest of the twelve children of Martin and Bertha (Felpausch) Pline.  Of the twelve we lucky to still have 9 of them still with us. However, Aunt Pat lives in South Carolina and doesn't always make it up.  This was this years shot of the brothers and sisters.

And this is the rest of the pandamonion that is the Pline Christmas....

 

 

 

It was good to see the cousins.  I don't even try anymore with the great and great-great grands.

Easy Street and More

Have started on Bonnie Hunter's new mystery quilt.  I think her mysterys all turn out to be large quilts.  Don't know if I will keep this one or use as a donation quilt but I have the first set of construction instructions done.  Sewing 4 patches from our grey and black and white fabrics.

 

 

I would like to make more quilts for our guilds "Heart Warmers" quilts which we donate to the local hospitals for chronically and critically ill people.  As I get closer to retirement I wanted to find an easy quilt that I could whip out quickly.  I think I found it.  The other day on a blog someone was showing quilts that a friend was making for charity.  I liked that it was just strips sewing together, very quick.

 

So I thought I would try it.  I had some santa, houndstooth and poke-a-dot fabric so thought I would give it a try.  Here was the outcome.

 

I think I may be able to put my stash to good work.



Play Date fun

Last Sunday and Monday I took classes from Bonnie Hunter.  I have been following her blog not for months and just love the ideas she comes up for using scraps.

The Thursday before she did a lecture at guild on the quilts you can make using scraps.  It was a great lecture.  The second best thing at the guild meeting was getting a look at the beautiful quilt made my members of the guild and Dorothy Jones who pulled it together.  Don't think we will have trouble selling these tickets.

The Sunday class with Bonnie was "Star Struck".  We used 2.5" strips and 2.5" squares.  These are the blocks I got made during class.

 

 



Bonnie enjoyed seeing my truck as well as mentioned on her blog quiltville.blogspot.com and I got a lot a great comments on the truck.

The class on Monday was "Oklahoma Backroads".  She switched the lights and darks in a normal "Road to Oklahoma" block to get this quilt design.  Another one using 2.5" strips and 2.5" squares.

Right now I'm planning on using these block to make 2 lap sized quilts. 

I have been surprised at the wildlife I have seen lately.  At the quilt retreats these cranes were directly behind the house we were staying in which backed up to a golf course.

And this young fello has been playing in traffic at Aurelius and Mt. Hope many a morning lately.  Wednesday I  got this picture of him about 3:30 pm.

Maybe over this long holiday weekend I will get pictures of some of my recent estate sale finds

Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving.