The fabric I wouldn't let go of

I had already walked two full aisles of the flea market with my crabby kids without buying a single thing when what did I spy with my little eye?

Bundles of vintage fabric scraps.

There was a lady sort of standing in front of them discussing a pair of scissors and I had flashbacks to all those records I lost a few weeks ago.

I was not losing all the fabric so I sort of reached around and started picking them up. (Why yes, I am that rude person. Ahem.) She didn't seem to care (the scissors weren't sterling, so she was leaving), so I scooped every last one of them.

There are only a few big pieces, but I don't care, even old scraps are gold to me!

There is a fair amount of this one, my favorite!








I love these towels so stinking much. I wish I had a little window I could use them as curtains for. Must find a good use for them.
There is probably a yard of this print.
This vintage juvenille print is what caught my eye in the first place.

And part of a feedsack.

See? That flea always treats me well!

Chicago land flea marketing

One of the things I most enjoy when we go to Chicago is the flea. It's huge and it always treats me well.

Since junking has been so bleh here this year I was especially looking forward to it.

But I only got to do about half of it this year. Sam was COMPLETELY refusing to sit in her stroller and ramping up to a huge temper tantrum, I was hot and needing to sit down and Jackson was starting to complain endlessly because he wanted to go to the Lego place.

I am still a little :-( that I didn't get to finish it.

C'est la vie.

A few things I bought that morning here in town before we left first:

I thought this prize ribbon would be fun for Halloween. (HURRY Halloween!)
This one is already pretty.
And this one had an interesting flower in the center.
I am always happy to find a fistful of old millinery flowers.

On to Chicago stuff:

More old books.
I have been stalking these forever on Ebay.
I am going to have to seriously start to think about where on earth I am going to put the dollhouses at this point.
The kids are enjoying this toy. (Jack LOVES harmonicas, even cheesy plastic ones!)
And this was a bit of a gamble. She had two cardboard boxes filled with ornaments. Each box was $20. Now, ordinarily I would stand there and count and make sure there were enough ornaments I was interested in to make the price even out to $1/ornament (which is the going rate around here now). But Sam was having a TOTAL fit. I tried to bargain her down farther, but I could only get her to take $35 for both boxes. Each box was only about half full of stuff I wanted, the other was satin wrapped balls and stuff.

So I took the chance since I knew we were leaving NOW.

It turns out there are exactly 35 ornaments worth keeping.

Not a huge score, but since I never buy ornaments anymore, it was worth it.

I did buy a fair amount of fabric, which deserves it's own post tomorrow!

Vintage quilts, as always

I am still buying quilts.

I know, you are shocked.

This one was an Ebay find. The photos were not great and I was the only bidder. The pictures don't matter as much to me because I feel pretty confident I know what I am looking a by now.

But I suppose it scares of "newbies".

It is in really great condition. And despite the gray skies today it is pure sherberty perfection.
Including that melon color I am still crushing on.
And green and purple.
This one came from a yard sale. I got up at 6 am to be the first one there.

I have to say I read a lot of junking blogs and I am green with envy right now. But, I also recognize that I have to target yard sales right now, which lowers my chances of success. I can only hit ones that actually advertise things I am looking for, which means everyone else knows those things are there too.

It takes away the *stumble upon* factor, which is often where the best finds are found.

So anyway, she advertised quilts and fabric and so there I was. There were about 8 quilts, in varying conditions and with varying prices. These were NOT $5 quilts, but they also weren't the crazy $200 quilts I have been seeing.

I was indeed the first to arrive. I was inspecting a few that interested me and sort of guarding them. Two other ladies arrive. They ask me what the prices are like and I point out the tags. One lady snorts REALLY loudly and says "I just sold one of these for SIX dollars!" The other lady sniffs and says "Ugh, she just took them out of where ever because they have THAT SMELL."

At that point I was sort of mad. So I said back (loudly) "They are OLD, they have often HAVE THAT SMELL. It's part of quilts."
And then I decided that since I have no log cabin quilt in the collection I should have this one.
And I negotiated the price down from $30 to $20.

All that huffing and puffing over $20 from those other biddies.
Log cabins are usually not my thing because they are often made with much older fabric than what I collect. (Umm, except I have failed to take photos of those fabrics apparently.)

If you look at this one you will see that the darker colors are indeed older fabrics and that the lighter shading is made with 30s and 40s fabrics.

There is one other one that I am a bit sorry I left behind. But it was far away and we ended up going to Chicago for the weekend so I didn't get back there.

I might email and see if it sold.

*A lot of people email me asking me about washing old quilts. I ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS caution people to proceed very slowly with that. You will often do more damage than good. Yes, they sometimes smell musty. Even after you wash them once they are stored that musty smell returns. It's like it breeds in the quilt cabinet at my house. I just air them out when it's their turn for display. I promise you it is not the end of the world if it smells a little musty! (wink)

Every kid's favorite hobby

My house looks like a shoe store every day.
Sam puts on every pair of shoes we own.

Then has a little walk about.

And then claps for herself. LOL

Right now I only put her in Robeez (the same thing I did with Jack), but I am considering buying her a pair of REAL shoes.

I tried once before and she wouldn't put her feet in them. Hmmmmm.

I am also considering a hair cut for her. I want to let it grow, but she still will not leave any sort of barrettes/rubber bands in it and it is always a hot mess.

A hot, messy mullet.

Yeaup.

Vintage children's books

I can never resist the siren song of vintage kid's books, even though we have so many we need a librarian on staff at the house to manage them all!
This one is awesome, it has books from the 1940's through the 1960's in it.

Jack loved these stories when he was small, I thought the Thames one was appropriate for the upcoming Olympics! (Now he reads amazingly hard books like The Call of the Wild, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Swiss Family Robinson.
Besides, the river is PINK!


This one is fun for a science girl like me.


This one is CRAZY sweet.


The dots and the animals make me crazy.
Some day I will do something with them other than have them all on the shelf. (But with color copies! No scissors. I know you are all scissor crazy. LOL)

So I tried to go to a garage sale this morning. It took me 30 minutes to get Jack dressed. Then 20 minutes to drive there. And it was 96 degrees at 8 am. Only to discover that she lives in a freaking GATED community and there is NO way to get in. Never mind that she advertised on craigslist and had signs up. Ummm, hello??? Annoying. And I really wanted a look at her pottery barn play kitchen.