wienerdog tricks.

Other Progress.

Besides getting a new brother, this is what I've been up to:

1) New furniture from my favorite uber-cheap auction site. These lovelies put me back $12. The chair:

The double-chair-ish Sofa Sort of Thing:

Twelve bucks. Total. And yes, that includes the tax. I cleaned them up (okay, with about another $12 of cleaning supplies.) Solid addition to the house. Thinking about the living room, but they may end up as the answer to my Upper Room Makeover.

2) Finished the Transformed Quilt Scraps pillows for my bedroom. These squares are the edges of these quilt tops of my Granny's (yes: that's what we called her) handed down to me from my mom.

And I did my first-ever freezer paper stenciling (inspired by this guest blogger over at my buddy CraftyTammie's). I went for small letters over big. 

And I gray sewed piping into the "mr." and some lovely vintage beige-ish ric rac into the seam of the "mrs." Solid.

I didn't have any "edges" for these squares since on the original they were sewn right up on each other, so I just re-attached them so that the square corners sort of merged into each other everywhere (kaleidoscope style, I'm thinking). I did it everywhere so it would look like it was on purpose. Classic repurposing move.

They're still a little floppy, so I may try to find new pillow inserts or I might just try Anne's Dog-Bed-Stuffing Technique with my scraps. We'll see. We'll see.

This ticks one more project off the list of Craft Debt 2011. Two more projects to go. [Insert photo of me high fiving myself here.]

I think I'm going to finish that list just in time for the boys to say, "Mom--can we sew a 32-piece plates set out of fabric that will need to hold food but should still be soft, 9 aprons (3 full; 6 half), 3 tote bags and 32 journal covers for our teachers, our teacher's aides, our friends' moms and the school secretary?"

Bring it, June.

Super Fanky Linen Napkins

I made these this morning in about 27 minutes for my Thanksgiving table. They are the perfect combination of Fancy + Funky, an important balance for me at all times. (And yes, Fancy + Funky = Fanky.)

More specifically, for the best-ever thanksgiving table of my life. 

In their first life, they were linen tea towels (the ones that I find at all my favorite thrift shops that are inevitably a calendar from 1979 or pictures of Australian kangaroos.) I have hoarded them like crazy because I like to make these bags out of them, but now I have a gob. And I wanted linen napkins for my table. So there I was, making the easiest linen napkin of my life.

The best part: just one straight line of sewing. If you take a biggish linen tea towel and cut it in half, alls you gotta do is sew up that one cut edge. The rest is already finished. Yeesh. A baby with a dull needle could do this while watching age inappropriate 70's reruns of Bill Bixby getting really mad and turning green.

I tromped the kids out foraging (after their third movie this morning) to find Free Foliage (and to keep them from going completely feral) and we had big luck. Big. 

Such table fun.

So, it went like this if you want to make these:

1) Procure a short stack of linen tea towels from your favorite thrift shop.

2) Cut them in half.

3) Fold over and iron the cut edge.

4) Fold the edge over again and sew into place. (You don't even have to use pins, People.)

5) Iron them up into rectangles.

Beauty.

And Happy Thanksgiving, BPF's. Ya'll are a wonderful community that I'm glad to be a part of. Real glad.

Back to the Junkyard & Finished Teacher Gift #1

So I went back to the junkyard and hit the Junkyard Jackpot.

Seatbelts! Here's Mike, my Seatbelt Supplier. He's nice. He is cutting seatbelts out of cars for me before he crushes them.

And here's Finished Teacher Gift #1 (a messenger-style bag with Seatbelt Highlights) 

 

And, as always, I like the insides even better than the outsides.

 
Mike called back today to say he pulled 19 more for me, so it looks like I'm heading back to the junkyard. Nowhere else I'd rather head back to--all that trash waiting to be made into something wonderful.

I Went to the Junkyard

It looked kinda like this, but newer:

There were junkyard dogs. Just like in the movies. One was a pitbull on a leash (Thank you, Junkyard Lady for being so kind as to supply the leash.) The other 4 were roaming and friendly. 

I'm on the hunt for old seatbelts so I can make some more of these--so there I was in the Junkyard Office with all 3 kids trying to swing a deal with the she-started-out-wary-but-warmed-to-me Junkyard Office Lady for seatbelts that are just about to be flattened into perpetuity. Squished and unused. Crushed and wasted.

I'm waiting for a callback from the Demo Guy. I'm feeling hopeful. Because how cool would it be to use seatbelts that are about to be trash anyways? (Super cool is the answer.) There I was with the lady, "I know you sell seatbelts with all the parts and everything, but those aren't the ones I want I want em when the car's about to be demo-ed they could just cut them out right before the car is demoed and you could like throw them in a box and sell them to me and I could pick them up like everycoupleofweeks or something and then I could get them really cheap and also they woudn't be just wasted." Somehow this no-breathe approach often works for me. She was at least mesmerized enough to tell me that she'd tell Her Husband the Demo Guy about me [I bet: Honey--I met a Lady Seatbelt Nutbag. Here's her #.]  She said he'd get back to me. 

My friend told me about an AIRLINE GRAVEYARD in the desert that about made me pass out with the possibilities there. Think. Of. All. Those. Seatbelts.

P.S. Thank you for the rock-solid Scissor Sharpening Advice. Excellent.

I've Been Meaning To Tell You

About my chalk boards. 

Not about hanging them, just about having them.

 

Anyway--I have a little tv/homework room (hmmmm--interesting combo. Right) that I have covered in chalkboards, all found at thrift stores and weird public auctions. 

I like chalkboards for these reasons:

1. They're totally FIND-ABLE at thrift stores and weird public auctions.

2. They take up a lot of wall space. This is a real decorating key for me because I am such a treasure-hunter but I really shake and shiver to spend more than about 4 and half bucks at a time. And so buying anything--even used--to cover a big chunk of wall space is really a challenge. I am forever in a thrift store with a big framed something art-ish, saying to myself, Do I like it 9 dollars worth? And so I am forever the girl with one tiny picture smack in the middle of a big wall. Cute. Real cute.

3. If you feel like it, you can write on them. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don't. I tend to even like the look of them when they're blank. When you do write on them, they're terrific for menu plans and chores lists and also happy seasonal greetings and reminders or even story-boarding about Jackie Robinson when you are nine and your dad is helping you on the report that is due.

 

4. If you're particular about color, you can re-surface them with black chalkboard paint. My really with-it friend who has such good taste that sometimes I can still taste it when I leave her house did this. And the effect was really, actually, quite stunning. I, however, am currently embracing schoolhouse green in my tv room. 

5. As a tip, you'll want to buy a decent eraser. Do you have one yet, Ginger? No, and that's why Jackie Robinson is still up there. I have this dream eraser on my list of future happinesses to purchase for myself.

And that is all that I have been meaning to tell you about chalkboards.

Bliss(es)

1. Finishing my Thanksgiving Apron and Getting the 7 yr old Man Boy to Model it:

 

No, there is not a single turkey on this apron--but I made it for Thanksgiving and my little sister is making one from another chunk of that funky fruit fabric for our own private sew-along. And yes, I got that fabric at a thrift store. Did you really wonder? The back:

 

 

2. Getting a thank you picture from my fave 3 yr old for the bday purse I whipped up for her:

 

3. Finding this rad glob of almost-purplish pink polyester--3 or 4 yds at least--at a thrift store this week (I think old polyester might be my love language):

 

4. Working on Thanksgiving and Christmas garlands. (Sooooo satisfying.)

 

5. Making homemade pretzels with the (aforementioned) 7 yr old Man Boy

 

because he got this book from the school library (Mom, I saw it on the "new books" shelf at the library and I RAN so nobody would get it before me. Classic. The boy loves to cook. He totally has an apron in his Christmas future.)

 

6. Dirt cheap garage sale fabric for Christmas gifts. Woo Hooo!

 

 

7. Raising goofballs. 

 

(A requisite cave man shot from the 9 yr old Man Boy at the rib joint where we ate last week).

5 shirts, a fleece, some rooster fabric and Viagra.

True story. I scored today: look at this whole hoard of goodies . . .

I'm going to tailor the men's t's (more on that later) and that fleece too. And I don't know what I'll do with the rooster fabric. It's light upholstery weight, so it's going to change somebody's life when I turn it into something, that much I know. And then there was the extra joy of the bag they put it in.

Now seems like a good time to tell you it was a Catholic thrift store.

I Almost Don't Want to Tell You.

See, this is the downside of being a thrifting blogger--you get all excited and you think, "EVERYONE should know about this!" but then this tiny little mean, selfish voice of your Inner Cheap Scrounger says, "Noooooooo, My Pretty, if THEY know, then it will all be gooooonnnnnnnnnnne." But then you say to yourself: stop that. Just tell everybody. There's enough old stuff to go around.

I do this sort of inner management regularly. I know: that means I'm not all I could be. I'm working on it. I feel compelled to tell you about a really cool spot to find old stuff. Maybe you already know about it, but I troll there every couple of days. It's almost as good as the "free" section of craigslist. Stop it.

Okay: it's Public Surplus. Do you already know about it? It's the slough-off of all kinds of weird, old usually-working institutional stuff that cities and universities and such auction off at ridiculously low prices. I live in a college town, so I find crazy good goodies there pretty regularly. Just this week I got this:

For $5.41. That included tax. And you might be saying Great. But what are you going to do with THAT? Well, lots of things. I think it has character. It's begging to live between my outdoor patio chairs. It might become my sewing table. I'm on a need-to-know basis about this and right now I don't need to know.

How do you find the one near you? Click over there and go for BROWSE--you can choose your state, then look through the towns/colleges/public institutions that are selling stuff. You'll get hooked.

And see, I bet I just grew. So that's positive.

Underwear Goals.

Even though my friend just said, "I don't think the words thrift store and lingerie should ever be used in the same sentence, ever since I saw this (and the 72 other underwear posts up over at the A.C), I've been wanting to sew underwear from my stash of thrifted fabric.Okay, I lied. When I first saw it, I thought RIGHT. LIKE I WOULD EVER SEW THAT. But then it sort of stayed with me. And now I have a full-blown underwear sewing plan.

The real reason for my bitter response was that (as you already know) I am a thrift-shop-materials girl, and the probability that I'd run across Flexible Lingerie Lace seemed ever so skimpy. Until LAST WEEKEND when there I was in a shop I'd never noticed and there it was in a bin screaming for me to buy it. Flexible Lingerie Lace. 45 cents. Triple Yowza. I practically yelled in the store, "Now I can sew some of that underwear!" 

(And please don't miss that the tagline on the package is "It's like pretty underwear.")

I also found some tricky little fake-silkish asian-y fabric that I think is going to make a first rate nightie. Dang pretty. 

Plus, I have three different big chunks (2 yards-ish each at least) of some of that super slick polyester that my godmother's pajamas used to be made out of that I've already made a set from.

So I've got big pj plans too. AND I found a brand new snap setter still in the packaging (okay--so who knows WHEN it was new) so I might just make some fancy snap enclosures at the neck if I can figure out how.

Maybe I'll post the results. But maybe not. 

I know: I'm a tease.

Thrifting finds of the day.

Here's my score for today. Super excellent.   

The best part about treasure-hunting for fabric at thrift stores is that you never know if you'll actually get anything. Or there's like a huge pile of . . .crapola. (There's been this same piece of white polyester over-dyed slinky stuff at the bottom of the bin that I always re-find but never buy.) But today I totally scored. 

PLUS  I unrolled the green linen and found this. 

 

It's like Oprah's Fabric Universe Gods are all smiling and waving at me and telling me that I butter their God Bread. It's like that.