Focusing on the Fabulous

Leading off with Fun Find of the Day - these 3 Grateful Dead poster mugs 69 cents each from Goodwill. Not retro but very cool. 

Where there is smoke, there is fire. Boy howdy, do we have a lot of smoke. We live in a Northern California tinder box, fearful of a fire maelstrom. Nine of the 10 acres burned here five years ago. We can't even escape to the coast because of the you-know-what outbreak. 

Little Lucky kitten update - she is acting more like a kitten now, playing and romping. A nice diversion from all of the stressors that include working remotely, Covid concerns, heat waves, and now excessive air pollution. 

My staycation goal was to make 600 eBay listings. The total now stands at 560 - all the new ones being sewing patterns. Now I have to wait for September promotion fixed price listings to continue. I have enough in my death pile from a recent sourcing trip to Folsom, California with the usual sewing patterns and needlework kits. There is a Star Wars costume pattern (yay) and I thought I would venture into Halloween items. 

 

It must be the Summer of the Blue Ball Jar, finding yet another one, complete with its wire closure.

This group of vintage books will most certainly sell. I kept both the blue 1972 Singer Sewing manual and the Cookie Jar encyclopedia. Three jars that I have are listed in the book.  

I admit I am buying more. Nothing worse than a pandemic shutdown to trigger a hoarder. One of my mother's friends also sent me an entire box of beautiful fabric! I am going to spin a sweet and simple quilt for her. A total surprise.

I am binding minimalist plaid quilt so its glamour shots in the wild will be soon. 

College has begun and I couldn't be happier. No, I am not sending my kid away to college, I have gone back to school. Since it is all an online learning platform, it is ideal for me. 

It is good to be student. Amazon Prime is just $6.50 a month for students (6 mos. free) (this is not an ad). I have had numerous tax incentives over the years too. But back to prime, there are numerous programs we haven't seen that are offered through this service. We had about run out of things to watch on Netflix and Hulu. This also gives my 92 year old mother, who I place orders for, more items with free shipping. She also got to order a fashionable bejeweled face mask only offered through Prime. She was delighted.

Pattern is the Day are these Cafe Curtains from 1957. Another one of my keeper patterns found today.

Something to Crow About

Two dollar ceramic rooster (no chips or cracks!) joined my collection. Of late, the best scores have been those they have just rolled onto the floor. 

Blogger has changed some things, making it more challenging. The old format was just fine. Adding a label now takes an act of God. 

Back to the something to crow about, I finally achieved the promotion I had been seeking. I am in the contingent stage pending background check, etc. so a start date is not set yet. I will still be working remotely but work more aligned with my legal experience. This is the job I have had my heart set on since I began public service. I started in an entry level legal secretary position, taking me nearly 7 years to get back to the professional level I left in private practice. 

On to reseller's update: Specialty and vintage cookbooks, CDs went up on the sales block. I TRY not to keep all the amazing cookbooks. This first edition Disney cookbook was pulled from my sales floor. I already tagged and scanned two recipes and thought, oh why not? It's a keeper. 

What I did list was a retro 70s Spice Island Cookbook.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/184385273641

Still experiencing hot temperatures in Northern California. Lots of indoor time mean I continue to put up those eBay listings. 

Yelling, lurking and reselling

This foggy weekend's focus was books and records. My 1958 Patchwork publication by Averil Colby arrived. 

 

And I found the follow-up book to Quilting for People Who Don't Have Time to Quilt. I am in that "still" category. Can't wait to get back my Gypsy Wife Meets Jelly Roll quilt currently in to the longarmer. I chose clamshell quilting in a dark brown thread. It is a pattern that I would NEVER attempt myself. I know I have a tendency to rush and sometimes I can't hold my arms completely still to do ruler work. I so prefer doing uncomplicated patchwork piecing or sewing together orphan blocks made by mystery quilters. 

Records included a few of Glen Campbell's and this Greatest Hits of Dave Brubeck. Dave is a jazz pianist who grew up in the city where I live now. When I found this, I may or may not have said loudly, "I found a Dave Brubeck!" 

With the Babylok in the shop and still recovering from my injury induced hexagon-cutting marathon, I have been sidelined from any progress in the quilting arena. 

My thrift shop lurking has paid off again with the purchase of this needlepoint kit for $3. This came from the same lot as the retro quilt blocks. This massive craft-related donation has been months in being released. Once priced, it doesn't move on the floor for another few weeks. This, I saw in the pre-pricing area and hoped I could get to it before anyone else. My first intent was to resell it, but decided it should join my project holder. 

January is an interesting month in thrift where nearly new clothes or even those still with their tags, land. There are also boxed gift items and, of course, discarded Christmas. 

Moving on to my reselling topic, what seems to still be selling is Christmas items. I am on holiday burnout right now after creating some countdown to Christmas posts, decorating, baking, all that stuff. A break is certainly in order. I have been buying like a maniac though thrifted Christmas CDs. Priced around a $1, I have an inventory of 50 to sell. 

I am a small potatoes store https://www.ebay.com/str/grammasonacid

I try to list 5 items a week, sometimes it is less and average a profit of $100 a month. Currently, I have 17 listings with an average price of $20. I recently sold a lion head door knocker I bought retail some 30 years ago. Don't need it, gotta sell it. My reselling is underwriting my thrift purchases. Admittedly, I am buying more with an eye for resell too. When I do buy for myself, I think, "these few dollars add up," and how hard it is to recapture on a resell. I end up putting back more than one item before I head to checkout.

Are you divesting or investing in more stuff? 

Sometimes it is simply a watercolor

I have seen a few original pieces of artwork in thrift in the past few weeks, a couple of abstracts, but this watercolor beckoned to me. Well executed and double matted, it had to join my collection. I have since polished the wood frame. Two pieces I did pass up were from the 1980s sort of western bathtub series. Had they been framed alike, I would have bought them at $4.50 each to resell.

I considered but passed up a men's medium NASCAR shirt. I don't have enough experience with online clothing reselling. 

I made my goal of 10 listings for the weekend. Populated mainly by quality maxi skirts that are too big for me now. My last two items I posted were this counted cross-stitch kit and some collectible pins, this day's thrift shop finds.

I've got 20 active listings. It sure does take away from my creative play time. We will see if I will want to keep that pace into the new year.

A lucky score for me were these 8 Reed & Barton select stainless spoons (10 cents each). Rarely do I find quality flatware. Our spoons have disappeared over the years so these 8 were badly needed. 

I thought I was getting a handle on my fabric organization but then I discovered an entire TUB of remnants. Ugh. I will go through it over the long Thanksgiving weekend. 

On the stove is split pea soup with chicken broth, carrots, and a piece of ham hock. Here is wishing your world is as peaceful and lovely as mine is at this moment.

Boxes on your doorstep

Took the weekend off from sewing after the push of the baby quilt, but still had a productive long weekend. I ripped approx. 50 CDs to my laptop, posted 10 active listings on Ebay, mainly Christmas sweaters, and culled my clothes which resulted in two bags full I hope to earn credit at the clothing exchange. I was thrifting back all of my larger pieces of clothing but thought why not see if they are resell worthy? I have learned to take my clothes to the exchange first. On this round I earned a $20 credit to buy something cute. 

Best of trail cam in October. This coyote has made more than one appearance on camera, and this hawk also. 

Greenhouse update: Brussell sprouts we have grown are on the menu and I am harvesting tomato pears. 

Baking away - old fashioned peanut butter cookies. 

Those linens I bought here, a couple of commenters thought they might be able to be resold, but I am still on the fence. I may be able to do something craphty for entry into the state fair. 

I impulsively bought two lots of partially completed quilt projects from an online auction site, prompted by the waived shipping charge. The first one arrived. I thought there might be something worthwhile because it weighed 4-1/2 pounds.


The contents did not disappoint! There were 12 of these burgundy blocks - well worth the $30 price of the box. It was apparent these were the unfinished projects from mystery quilter in Tacoma, Washington. A nod to her skill level, many notches higher than mine. I am thinking of finishing this quilt with a light grey border and sashing. 


Bonus item - a small piece that fit my settee like it was made for it.


There were also 6 yellow fans, 4 pink fans, 9 partial pink fans, assorted orphan blocks, partial projects and patchwork piecings. 


A gamble that paid off, I see a new quilt for me in my future!

Fresh blackberries/grapes and a hoarder in recovery

Had to lead off with this image of freshly picked blackberries and grapes. I got myself in gear this morning to pick blackberries before the heat wave, then made a blackberry pie on the BBQ.

I was going to wait to list more stuff on Ebay, I am highly motivated right now so I will ride the wave. I don't know what changed in my mind when I turned 60. Maybe it is dreams of travel, it is definitely the desire to be debt free. Had some expensive dental work performed last year that threw me off too. 

My resell listing focus will be fabric, quilt kits, a sampler, and some jewelry groupings. They will be priced to move quickly. My goal is 10 listings, as of this post, I have 4 live. 

Quilting away on composition quilt. Pairing down my projects yet again. Asking myself, "When can I realistically complete this?" or "Can I resell it?" I had been collecting Asian-inspired fabric but have lost interest in that type of quilt. I will see if it will sell as a bundled lot. 

At first, I regretted buying this $4 bag of precuts. After I saw what I had, these can be made into cornerstones or some even piano borders. 

You get spoiled when you find so much for so cheap, like I did last weekend. Those finds have already been listed for sale. 

I picked up this counted cross-stitch for $2.49. I had returned to the same Goodwill, hoping for the big find again but settled for this never-opened craft kit. If it passes the "Tami likes it" test then I will either keep it for myself or resell it. 

You can see it is a tug and pull with me. I sell some things then buy others to replace them. Let's say I am a hoarder in recovery. 

The Un-Wedding Quilt and the Hair Stylist Breakup

This quilt was originally intended for my hair stylist for her June wedding but there was a glitch in the hiddy-up at the longarmer having sent it to her at the end of May. I think it got lost in the backlog. It was originally scheduled to be quilted in wavy lines but I upgraded to the Jacobean pattern. While I waited, I was able to bind two other quilts.

Feedsack backing

Back to my original intent, I wasn't invited to my hair stylist's wedding, I thought it would be a nice gift for her, being one of her clients. But as the months went by, she revealed she wouldn't be working on Saturday anymore so we ended our stylist/client relationship. It is more wanting to be with her husband, than anything between us. Link to my original post wedding-quilt-for-june-bride.

It really is my best work so far, the third quilt I have sent to a longarmer. (Link to close up quilting https://www.instagram.com/p/B0T0ZQmnDeb/) It was a study of stops and starts. I redid some blocks over and over. I even sewed on the entire binding and then seam ripped it all off again. I should have gone with my instinct of a 3" binding rather than 2-1/2", blue rather than pink. I have been very happy with the creation of the quilt tops and backings. I am nearly done with the art quilt I have been working on since last year. It is king-sized and contains dense quilting with numerous colors of thread. 

Reselling update: The only thing that has sold of my 50 listings are fabric, quilt blocks and quilt kits. Those items will most definitely be my focus for secondhand finds. Well, that and specialty pins and jewelry. 

In light of that, my thrift shop finds were (drum roll) fabric and pins! There were a few pieces of the Tulip Time vintage pattern but all I wanted was the bowl, still a bargain at $6.50. I have this set from my grandmother.

We will see if on my next group of listings, whether these pins will sell. There is the 1996 Atlanta Olympics gymnast, the set of 4 GSA Partners in Wildfire pins, and the California 4H one is a keeper. 

Linking up with:
Kelly at myquiltinfatuation.com for Needle and Thread Thursday and Wendy at wendysquiltsandmore.blogspot.com for the Peacock Party.