Recent Sewing Bargains

I recently found these lovely vintage patterns for $.99 each plus shipping. I have a serious "thing" about vintage patterns. Can't resist them. I swear I am going to sew myself a bunch of vintage style dresses....just as soon as I fully understand altering patterns to fit my pudgy body.

Until then these will go live in the pattern file with the rest of my collection. I don't want to jinx it but there is the possibility I will be dragging home a box full of vintage patterns this weekend. Wouldn't that be wonderful?

Yesterday I was bored and decided to make the run of the local thrift shops in search of bargains. I found these 2 books on using a serger, for $1.99 each.

Apparently the Singer book is THE book to get if you want to learn about your serger. I also found these 3 fabrics in a bag for 30% off $2.99. The first are cottons and there are 3 yards each.

There was also this super groovy piece of knit fabric in there. Sadly it is only half a yard. I'll have to wait until I get a solid knit to mix it with.

Finally Starting A Quilt

Today I worked up the nerve to start cutting out the pieces for my first quilt. I had never used a rotary cutter or cutting mat before. I thought if I used a tissue paper pattern for the first quilt it would make more sense to me, as that is what I'm familiar with. But I quickly realized it is much easier to just measure the size of the piece needed and use the rotary cutter and a ruler to cut the fabric to the desired dimensions. Here are the pieces for Reggie's quilt, all cut and ready to sew.

A close-up of the paw and bones print.

I bought the wrong kind of stabilizer so now I need to figure out how to anchor the hearts to the white squares so I can applique them. And I still haven't figured out how to use my monogrammer. But tomorrow I'll begin assembling the blocks. You need to do a lot of ironing while quilting. I don't have enough room to set up an ironing board in my tiny sewing room so have commandeered the hallway as my ironing space.

The mailman brought me some more goodies today. 

6 more quilting and sewing books...

And some face dirt (mineral make-up).

Everyday Minerals had a "free shipping" week and I stocked up. The 4 eye shadows and the little brush were also freebies. I love this make-up line. It's affordable, good for your skin and they always have some kind of special running.

Books are Good. FREE Books are Better!

Between Craigslist, Freecycle and Ravelry, I have gone from having very little fabric or sewing books....to having an impressive fabric stash and a pretty sweet sewing library. There are great items out there, just looking for a new home. You just have to keep your eyes and ears open.  The old saying, "One man's trash is another man's treasure," is so true. Here are some new-to-me treasures.

These first 4 books and the pile of fabric were Ravelry trades. For the cost of postage I was able to turn yarn and knitting books into fabric and sewing books. The fabrics are really cute. Inspired by 1930's era prints. They'll be great for quilting.

I search Craigslist many times a day and yesterday, early afternoon, I spied an ad for FREE sewing books. A huge stack. Free to the first person to inquire. Guess who was first? A quick drive to Lakewood (during which time it decided to snow like crazy) and I added these gems to the library.

Lots of helpful sewing wisdom from this familiar guru.

Books on tailoring and working with fabrics.

Another quilt book.

But the real jewel in the stack was this. 

How to make your own sewing patterns. 

Remember this cross-stitch kit I picked up at the thrift store? Remember how I commented it would be easy? Man, was I wrong. Yes, the image is stamped on the Aida cloth. But there are multiple pages of charts and stitching patterns.

It will be quite a challenge. It took me over an hour to sort through the pile of floss. And I'm still not 100% sure I have the colors matched with their names. The descriptions were rather vague and could describe more than one of the colors. I sorted them, to the best of my ability, on a piece of cardboard. Wish me luck!

More Quilt Stuff

Today I stopped in at Half Price Books to look for books on how to quilt. These looked good. And I see that they both got very good online reviews. I am working up the nerve to tackle my first quilt and these should prove invaluable.

I've also been bartering for more fabric. I traded 2 skeins of Cash Vero and one of Classy for this lot. Its mostly fat quarters but there are some larger pieces, too. It totals 6 yards.

And today I received this batch (7 yards) in exchange for 6 skeins of Berroco Weekend. Reggie approves.

Some New Goodies

I've been quiet but that doesn't mean I haven't been busy. I'm still gathering items for my future homestead. I ordered a couple of things from Amazon.com. I got a compost aerator, and this book.

The book is on seed saving. Harvesting your seeds to reuse the following year. I had borrowed a friend's copy earlier and wanted one of my own. The compost aerator makes it easy to turn the compost when it's in an enclosed bin, like the 3 I have. And I bought a couple of used books from a Ravelry friend. They are on raising goats. I hope to have both meat and dairy goats eventually. The lady also included a bar of her goat's milk soap.

Today I felt the need for a bit of shopping therapy and headed out to find some yard sales. Unfortunately it's the end of that sale season and the offerings were few and far between. I only found one item to purchase, a large Foley mill for $3. "But Roxi, didn't you just buy a food mill for $5 recently?" Yes, I did. But the one I got today is much larger. It's the one on the left in the picture. I can't decide if I should keep the smaller one, or sell it?

Since the yard sales were a huge disappointment I hit a few thrift stores. I am jonesing for some cast iron cookware. No luck at either Salvation Army or Goodwill. I was making a quick sweep through Bargain World (the place where I'd found my Supreme Juicerator for $19) when I spied this.

Hmmmm....that looks like a dehydrator. Closer inspection revealed it to be an Excalibur. That's a very desirable item. I was stoked. But did it work? I found the testing strip at the back of the store and low and behold, the fan started up. I haven't actually tried it out properly, and it might not work. But it was only $9.99 and new they sell for over $100. Mine is circa 1981. If it works well I'll save up to get one with more trays. I like my other dehydrator just fine put it has stacking trays instead of these, that slide in. The advantage? You can put taller items inside it. The Excalibur is supposed to be able to make yogurt.

And I have a bunch of these milk glass yogurt cups with lids. Look, they fit inside!

I may be able to discontinue my search for a second yogurt maker and just use this. I'll have to try it out next week. I'll let you all know how it goes.

Borders Books Bargains

The local Borders Books is closing. Probably thanks to Amazon.com and the new e-book craze. This is a huge loss for Tacoma. A customer had stopped in, during my own clearance sale, and told me she had seen a book on dairy goats at Borders, and had thought of me. I couldn't get over there until this past Monday and was shocked at how bare the place looked. I wandered around, trying to find books on livestock or farming. I wandered upstairs, downstairs, and back upstairs again. I was just about to give up when I spied a row of books on "dogs". I was getting warmer. On the opposite side of this row I finally found books on livestock. I grabbed up 4 books on bees, 2 on goats and 2 on hobby farming.

I also found a couple of interesting gardening books. One on compost and one on gardening year round in unheated green houses.

I regret I didn't look through this one before bringing it home. I bought it based solely on the title. But when I got home and actually leafed through it I discovered it should really be titled "Off Grid Mansions".

These aren't any kinds of homes I'd be likely to afford. They are pretty to look at, though. And I'm sure we can glean a little useful information from it. But I wish I'd left it and brought home that book on ducks, instead.

This last book was my unexpected treasure of the day. I used to stock it in my shop and had sold the last copy thinking I could reorder. But then I made the decision to retire at this time and never had a chance to get the book back in. I was crouching low to the ground, searching the titles for farm type books when I spied this out of the corner of my eye.

Hurray! The one knitting book I was lusting after, and there it was. For 50% off. Why did I want this particular book?

It contains the knitting charts for making this baby sweater. I can take those charts and plug them into an adult pattern and have my very own bee sweater. I ended up spending over $130 for 12 books, but they were all half price.