May Weird and Wacky

He's got the Look! Leading us in to May Weird and Wacky. Painting for sale at Old Soul coffee roasters in Sacramento, California. 

Spud gravy boat

Sourcing at the coast meant I was successful in nearly all of my eBay categories - yarn, a Christmas needlekit, sewing patterns, and CDs. The most delightful of the CD finds was a collection of music by Phish.

These images are all from thrift shops on the North Coast of California. 

Dog Bed Liner and a Couple of Updates

As with many of the plants in my greenhouse, I let them go to seed. These are garlic chives in bloom. 

As a follow up to the gigantor dog bed cover that I made part-1 and part-2, I made the liner. All I had to do was cut two more enormous pieces of fabric for the top and bottom. The side panels had been completed. For filling, I used batting and filling I had picked up secondhand. I haven't sealed the enclosure to decide whether I want to add a lighter filling.

Seller update: I hadn't reported back on my yarn sales. The quality skeins sell. Not always easy to find at thrift shop prices. 

The biggest backlog in my death pile is books. I don't have any shelf space available. The same with CDs, no more room on the rack. That can be a seller's quandary. You have items to list but no space to store them.  

I continue with the greeting card listing sessions. I have yet to sell a card as of this post. I admit I really enjoy listing the smaller items. The greeting card fields are easy peasy compared to some items like jewelry. The history of America is required for those listings. 

Greenhouse update: 

I am a BAD greenhouse mommy. I just let everything go. There are sunflower volunteers, asparagus I tried to keep under control but have grown into ferns. Flowering kale and garlic are going to flower. The artichoke is in its third year and looks like it will produce over 10 buds. 

Ending the post with a listed Happy Birthday card. It is my brother's birthday today!

https://www.ebay.com/itm/185910618685

Latest Listings Greeting Cards

https://www.ebay.com/itm/185905011415

I collect a lot of things. It came as no surprise that my latest eBay listing category was greeting cards. I doubt my competitor sellers were glad to see me arrive as Top Rated and donating to charity. 😁 I have no idea how successful I will be selling in this category.  

Here is how I have organized the listed cards that are unsigned, undated, and missing the envelope. Binder picked up at an estate sale and page protectors in the office supplies stash. 

Rather than organize by category, I have them in alpha order with the first letter of the card's title. 

This ephemera is the easiest to list in all of the categories that I sell in. I merely scan in the front, back, and interior of the card. On those with envelopes, I show an image with the envelope flap. These and the lead-off image were recently listed.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/185904995201

https://www.ebay.com/itm/185905000986

Ah, let's end the post with a couple of Letha rag dolls looking for adoption. 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/185905025260

I am inching closer to my 2,500 listings goal! 

Rag Dolls Revisited and the Work Station update

Seller update: The rag doll listing sessions have ended. I don't pass them by when I see them at thrift. Usually priced at a couple of dollars, they represent a $20 bill each to me. This pink frazzled hair one was particularly irresistible to me. I gifted her to a friend. 

A recent Mother's Day podcast highlighted the sale of vintage greeting cards. I collected them because of the graphics. I knew I had a few, but I didn't realize how many and what a gold mine I had been sitting on. 

Like my beloved sewing patterns, I have been collecting greeting cards for many, many years. Thrift Town (now defunct in our area) would sell the cards by the bag! In my collection, which I will now scan in for sale, are 18 cards without envelopes, and 65 with envelopes. Here is the first card of the series of sessions. These will be as easy to list as the patterns. 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/185900226367

Work station update: My work stations continue to evolve. All workers in my department have received laptops. Remote work prior to that meant using your own equipment. 

This laptop also has a slide at the top of the camera, so you can appear off camera. I don't have that on my personal laptop, so I placed piece of paper over my webcam. Camfecting is being hacked through your webcam. Hackers are able to gain access to the webcam and obtain video and images. They are able to do this without triggering the light alerting the owner that it is recording.  

I run three monitors at work and now three monitors at home. I count my personal laptop not shown in the image above. 

My cubicle at work sports the two Goebel ceramic cats, and the tiki mug collection. 

Back to those vintage greeting cards - I am thrilled I have stumbled onto another source of income. It is especially delightful that I have already sourced them. I have a sneaking suspicion I have more of them in my offsite storage. 

Quilt from Men's Hawaiian Shirts, Part 2

I am working my way through this project of the men's Hawaiian shirts for a king-sized quilt. This layout is the first 8 blocks of 7-1/2" squared 4 patches. I calculate I will need at least 32 blocks. 

There are some nice leftover remnants I will either incorporate into the backing or keep for my own project. Perhaps crazy quilt designed blocks with these same materials. 

A $1.99 thrifted bag of coordinated fabric remnants included this pieced heart.  

Seller update: After filing a Fictitious Business Name Statement, publishing the same with the local paper, I have opened a business account with the bank. It feels like a real business now. I have done all of this in preparation of being 1099'd - an eBay seller at the $20,000 annual sales mark. The fiscal year for the California state sales tax is June, and I will report my numbers then.  

I have also hit a milestone in feedback from eBay buyers - 600 positive! 

Pattern of the Day is from 1974 - a specialty dress through Salem cigarettes.  

https://www.ebay.com/itm/185885104723

That pattern was one I had saved in my personal collection. The 5 tubs have been winnowed down to 2 small tubs. 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/185889152501

My newest listing sessions have been with fabric rag dolls. I like to photograph them on the woodpile in the early morning hours. I think it is an unusual background. This calico cow doll was part of the $20 estate sale haul. Let's see how fast she will sell. 

Quilt from Men's Hawaiian Shirts, Part 1

My current project takes me back to my start in quilting. I had always been intrigued by the complex craft. Eight years ago or so, a yard sale featured scads and scads of oversized Hawaiian shirts. A light bulb went off - they would be perfect for quilting practice. I knew how expensive retail fabric could be. I bought around 40 of them at $1 each. The image below was one of those pieces created from that lot. It covered a work cubicle hole in the wall. 

This project, co-worker requested, is a Hawaiian-shirt themed quilt. She had 8 of them from her family I processed for the material. Large scale prints limit pattern choices. I opted for 8" cut squares to showcase the different prints of Bishop Street men's shirts. The first few blocks of 4 are shown in the lead-off image. 

Part 2 will feature the quilt top aka flimsy with all of the 8" squares sew together with borders in the light denim fabric only at the top, bottom, and sides. 

Optional: Add a piano keys border with the remnant fabric (I may only have enough to do that type of border only on the top and bottom, not on the sides).  

I am learning the craft by trial and error with a few YouTube tutorials thrown in. I changed my technique of matching the seams on quilt blocks. Rather than sew the block from corner to corner, I match the seams and sew from the middle to end, then turn the block and finish from middle to end. Doing it that way means the block hasn't skewed and the lines match up. It seems to be working. 

The appliqued flower quilt is finally finished. These blocks came to me in a $40 thrifted lot. I sold half of them, and kept these for this quilt. A couple of the blocks were missing their green stems, so I added those. 

The extra wide fabric backing is shown at the top, folded over. The binding is the same color as the pink outer border. The quilted pattern is flamingos and flowers. 

Our weather has gone from warming to cold and rainy. Everything is so greeen!