February Weird and Wacky and Seller Update

My monthly series continues on thrift shop weird and wacky items. These two superhero paintings landed in up country hospice thrift. 

It was probably a mistake to pass on these two paintings. I would have a tough time explaining to the Mr. why I brought those two stunners home. 

While I see a lot of items I know have value, it comes down to what am I willing to store? 

A few items that defy description seen at the Goodwill boutique in Sacramento, California.

There was not one but two of these lovely lamps - this one happened to be plugged in for the full effect. 

Seller update: It is time for spring cleaning on items I have listed for sale. I picked up a bunch of rag dolls and they are going to be set free from their listings. 

Anything Primitive sells quickly and for the asking price. This Pattern of the Day is neither weird nor wacky, she just scores high points on the cute meter. 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/186318223596

It is not unusual for two or three sewing patterns to sell right after being listed. I list 25-30 patterns in my listing sessions, and some never make it down to the stockroom. 

Vintage cookbooks sold like hotcakes during lockdown. All but the truly unique cookbooks I will continue listing, I am going to pull the mediocre ones from the shelves. People are ordering Uber Eats and food delivered to the door. Why would they want to concentrate on cooking? 

The same reasoning holds true for the needlekits. I think people in general have turned away from in-home activities. While I like to finish other quilter's projects, that is not true of partially completed needle kit projects. The half-done ones will be delisted. 

Before the delisting begins, I put a few more books on the board with this Miniature Needlepoint and Sewing Projects for Dollhouses (1977) that fits in the sorta weird category. 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/186318557090

I want to work through my "death pile" before I start my college course, and before I take off chunks of time in the summer. Next up on the eBay listing sessions is Yarn🧶

Moving into March means garden preparation. Another shot at the experiment I like to call gardening. 

Fan Quilt Progress and Patterns of the Day

Pretty sure I made a squealing sound when I discovered that my recently-purchased patchwork pieces from an online auction fit in perfectly with my fan quilt project. I hope to border at least the top and bottom of the quilt top with the purple 1-1/2" strips and the mystery blocks. 

Moving into Patterns of the Day.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/186308724556

Here are the cutie patootie patterns that were recently listed. Bought all at one thrift, thinking they were donated by a pattern collector. The one listed above is from the 1970s, the next few are from the 1980s, all uncut. 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/186308473578

https://www.ebay.com/itm/186308633597

https://www.ebay.com/itm/186308676646

https://www.ebay.com/itm/186308681144

I am fast moving into Crazy Cat Lady territory. The newest cat to hang around the property is Socks. This is a long haired gray cat with white socks. He/she peeks around the house columns in the front when it is feeding time. 

Whitey, the big white male cat, continues to make himself at home. While I adopted two, and we found one down our roadway, these last two have adopted us. Total cat count - 5. 🐈 I will have to bring someone in during the summer to care for the cats. I can't board them since most all are feral. 

Finally, the newest wrinkle in AI is the warning not to log into your bank account with facial recognition stop-using-faceid-immediately. I thought what a cool tool but then read this blog post. Best to log in another way. 

Cowboy Quilt Top Redone

I did not like direction I went with the first cowboy quilt top. When the new fabric arrived that I ordered, and I discovered a stack of mystery quilter star quilt blocks, a new flimsy was born.  I cut up the previous quilt top and incorporated some of the fabric into the new top.

When I began bordering the star quilt blocks, I noticed that some of them had red bleed. Red bleed is when red fabric bleeds into other surrounding fabrics and stains them red. There was a small amount of that on a few blocks. Now I know why mystery quilter rejected them. I think they are too stunning not to use in a quilt. They are well crafted and tie-in my rodeo bronc fabric.  

Here is the companion fabric I've ordered to supplement the backing. 

I lurk around a certain online auction. The best time to win is around the holidays. This was the beginning of the President’s Day weekend, and I happen to bid on pieced patchwork rather than loose fabric. 4 bags of wonderfulness headed my way. In those bags I see pieces of partial jelly rolls, some "x" blocks, and other goodness. 

My big box pink tulips are in full bloom. It was a surprise to me that they are pink and a bonus that they are ruffled. The ones left were yellow ones in full bloom so I choose a container that hadn’t bloomed yet. I thought they were going to be yellow ones.

Seller update - I am back at my sewing pattern eBay listing sessions. Hoping to hit a President's Day sale at thrift. 

Back to Listing

One of the onerous tasks of being a seller is creating listings. I have had the images of 8 CDs sealed in package for a few weeks now. When I do a listing session on average 25 items, I normally move through photographing to listing within the same day. 

My breaks from listing sessions last a few weeks at a time. I hover around 2,500 active listings on eBay. I have approx. 75 sewing patterns, and 25 books waiting in the wings. 

I don't hesitate to pick up sealed Christmas CDs. They have two things going for them (1) brand new, and (2) Christmas. The same is true of needlekits - anything Christmas will eventually sell. 

The best of my sealed-CD listing session was this 1997 Sing Your Heart Out.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/186302757558

Valentine's Day meant tasty chocolates, and some big box tulips that are just now flowering. A new LED light in my remote office now illuminates my beloved thrifted artwork.

Happy Valentine's Day, and Fabric Collections

I could not resist this Looney Tunes Pepe Le Pew tie found at thrift. It is beyond adorable.

I have been going through my quilt project bags and am discovering more and more pieces to incorporate into my quilts. 

I pulled jelly roll strips, fabric precut to 2-1/2" width, from two different colorways. I am going to do a wide piano keys borders, one of my favorite ways to extend the sides on a quilt top. 

Cowboy quilt continues along with the addition of three yards of bronco busting fabric. Some recent thrift shop purchase of quilt blocks worked in perfectly. This is the third quilt that the blocks have ended up on the outside of the borders rather than as centerpieces. The backing might become the front, but it doesn't matter as it really is a two-sided quilt. 

I have already purchased the longarm quilting service so I have got to get her cowboy quilt on the road asap. 

On the college front - I have read the entire textbook Women in Art with a month to go until the 8 week course begins on March 18. I updated my college major online with the Los Rios Community College District - now an official Art History major. 

On the personal front - I rarely remember my dreams but the ones that I have been remembering revolve around money. One dream was three different instances where I discovered cash in thrifted books, and such (all dreams). The most recent dream, I found a $100 bill tucked in a sewing pattern (again, a dream). Our Mega Millions lotto was $425 Million. That is, of course, one BIG dream. 

Pre Super Bowl Sewing

I knew I would have time prior to the game to get in some patchwork piecing. I was able to cut the pieces and sew the flimsy. The 12 "doggy" blocks are mostly canines, with other animules thrown in. It is pinned to its intended backing. 

My goal is to have on hand 8-10 lap quilts to give as gifts. This is the beginning of this one, I am not quite sure how to embellish it yet. I am out of doggy print fabric. The next fabric pull will be from my stash to make these prints pop. 

I don't watch football during the regular season. I don't even watch the playoff games. But I will watch the Super Bowl. Advertisers debut their best commercials, and some are entertaining. I always enjoy the half-time show. 

Our snacky food items for the event include cheesy Italian sausage, fresh French rolls, all the fixins for sandwich, popcorn, and Diet Coke. 

Cowboy Quilt update, and Quilting is the Perfect Craft for the Attention Deficit

I was surprised when my daughter requested a cowboy-themed quilt. I didn't place her as the country-western type. 

I had enough fabric on hand to complete the quilt top. A recent thrift shop purchase of a cowboy-themed jelly roll remnant for $6 completed the borders. Here are the inside photos, I will get the glamour shots once it returns from the quilter. 

Going through my fabric stash, I have discovered I have used up nearly all of my yardage remnants. The last fabric horde I was able to buy at thrift included a lot of small pieces, fat quarter and smaller. 

Onto my lead title - Quilting is the Perfect Craft for the Attention Deficit. Let me explain. There is a word in quilting - "Squirrel." Squirrel means your attention has been diverted from one project to another, to another, to another. 

Try as I might, I cannot adhere to a schedule of completing my quilt projects. The beauty of the craft is that you DON'T have to do things in a certain order. Also, life events come up like the birth of a baby, or other celebratory milestones. 

My big news is my daughter is engaged and is having a REAL wedding. 💒 Not just a go-to-Vegas and maybe have a witness, we are talking with a maid of honor and bridesmaids. So exciting! 

But I digress - back to the quilting talk. I have a list of projects. Have I completed any of them on the list? Lawd NO. I have squirrel projected these last two quilts. To tie up the idea of my daughter's upcoming wedding, I have the idea of making cat or dog themed lap quilts to give as gifts for the bridesmaids. This will be as a thank-you for acting as the same, in addition to whatever gifts to the group as my daughter thinks appropriate. 

Here are some images of the fabric pulls. I discovered I have more dog fabric than cat fabric. I do know that the maid of honor is a "dog person." Hoping the other three bridesmaids are also, but I can spin together one cat quilt. 

I will most likely do 4 patches bordered in companion fabric. What do you think of my gift idea? 

Fan Quilt update, Whitey Comes to Town, and Morse Code

The 12 fan quilt blocks are sewn together with the purple paisley borders. I will stop for now until the fabric I have ordered arrives. 

I thought I might like some Kaffe Fassett fabric but nothing matched with my lower-key quilt. I opted for this Birds & Blooms Birds & Feathers Blue Paintbrush Studio E print for my borders.  

When I need a fabric for a certain project, I pop onto the FabShop hop and look for what I need while I enter the Hop to win prizes. 

I goofed up on my new laptop purchase, I thought it had touchscreen - which I had grown to love. But NO. It is a bigger screen though going from 13" to 17". I rarely travel now so a smaller laptop isn't necessary.  

The newest cat to join our clan is Whitey. He has been hanging around the property for months. In the new year he started to come nearer to the house by the cat feeding bowls. This week he came close enough that I could pet him. I am just guessing he is a him. A big cat he was clearly someone else's pet at one time. 

With the addition of Whitey, that makes 4 cats in the clan. Lucky, Susie, Xena, and Whitey.

Ending the post with an Morse Code instruction booklet that came with the Nye Viking Standard Key, the Mr. bought "just in case." Good to know we could transmit radio signals if there was a zombie apocalypse. 

Saving the Images - Managing Media part 2

One of the downsides to collecting is sometimes you have to store stuff away for awhile. I know I must have this doll somewhere but I do not remember her at all. The image was captured on a rural road in Amador county. 

After storing all of my music to the "OneDrive," I am rounding up all of my pictures to store there also. Some I had stored on a thumb drive. Here is one from the 1961 Pacific Ocean Park series, a group of which I sold to someone the original slides. I kept the images of our family from that now-defunct park. That is a my mom, my brother, and a 2-year old me. 

This is a rescued slide from Unknown American City, placing it in the 1950s with those fin-tail cars in the foreground. I went through a phase of buying 35mm slides wherever I could find them. 

Some of the slides were marked with the description, this one being Paris, France Children's Ride at Eiffel Tower, Sept. 1957. 

And there is this amazing image Plaza del Signoria, Feb. 1966. 

An example of what I used to collect. It was a lot of someone else's vacation photos. 

I passed by some slides at an estate sale because they were priced too high. I do keep an eye out for them though. 

Countdown to Retirement has begun. Five months to go and retired in July 2024. I have all these plans estate saleing, thrifting, sewing, college classes, puzzles to start. You all know how it will end up -