Flea Market Sunday on Thursday this time

 Right now I am so, so sick of the cold and so ready to be wandering aisles of junk in the warm sun. I've still been scrounging up junk though.  A big pile of eggs all at one time! Wooohooo.

 A vintage euro pillow cover.

 I just love this embroidery.

 Some needlebooks and yards and yards of a light lawn fabric. (Do I dare try to make clothes again?)

 That border print on the back of this quilt sold me in an instant.

 But the front is good too!

 A fab chenille.

 I paid quite a bit for this, but I just could not stop thinking about it.

Close up of the eggs.

Hurry up spring!

Little Miss Muffet, making a tuffet

 I wanted to make one of these tuffets when I saw them around on Instagram last year, but once I saw the price decided I was out.  One day on spring break I saw a tuffet kit in the clearance bin at Joann. I realized I had a stackable coupon so I made a rash decision and decided I was back in.

 The pattern in the kit is really not great. The instructions are basic and if you ask me - flat out wrong.  There isn't a whole lot out there on the internet either. (Because there is a company that makes $$$$ on these things.) I pieced together some bits and pieces and after a big struggle in the beginning it came together pretty easily.

 It still wasn't super cheap though. The kit was $32, the feet and hardware were $40, some incidentals were another $5, fabric was from a HUGE pile of jelly roll strips I had just bought on facebook.

So? What changes did I make? I foundation pieced it onto muslin instead of just sewing the strips together for starters. Then I added several inches of length to their pattern because I was scared it wasn't going to be long enough. I didn't staple my cover to the bottom either. I sewed a piece of cording on the cover with a zig zag stitch so I could just tighten the cording on. The large buttons from hobby lobby are cheap and dent as soon as you try to tighten them, do not buy those!  And we screwed the feet into t-bolts.

It's a cute little thing, and turned out way better than the jelly roll rug disaster.

Kid patrol

 The spring break for public school and private school do not coincide, so we had two kids on break for ELEVEN ridiculous days and grant still in school.  I had to have an urgent dental procedure, and complete 6 hours of preschool mandatory volunteering in the same week too. Dave took the kids to the science center one day, I took them to the zoo another and then we just hung out at home.

I am not gonna lie, I am SO READY for those school buses tomorrow. So, so ready.

Happy St Patricks Day!

 To be perfectly honest I didn't even realize it was St Patricks Day. There are just way, way too many things going on around here and I am constantly searching for things I can dump to lighten my load. Guess random holidays are first on that list.

Flea Market Sunday

 The first weekend in March brings a fundraiser garage sale that is HUGE and is the beginning of the yard sale season around here.  It will still be another month before anything else really starts going, but it gives me a much needed taste of junk in the winter. I have been going to this thing since it started 11 or 12 years ago, and it used to be a pretty small thing. Now it is more than 600 vendors, 5 miles of hiking and this year? Oh this year brought EPIC traffic that brought the entire town, interstate, etc to a complete standstill. They actually closed the event around 10 30 am because there was no place for anyone else to go.  I am really hoping they find a workable solution and don't just decide to stop doing the event next year!

I was there bright and early so no problems for me. Some years I have a hard time spending $20 here. This year I completely filled my cart and the extra bag I had brought.

So, what did I buy?

 A complete vintage quilt kit...

still in the original envelope.

This was also tucked in there and it's a treasure itself!

 Filled with gorgeously colored pictures and quilt patterns.

 I bought a few pillow tickings to use on the backs of my living room pillows. And a few embroidered pillow cases for cutting up.

 This candle holder is HORRIBLY painted but that bee!

 The sweetest vintage baby quilt top. It's finished, I wonder why she didn't quilt it?  I need to think on this. It really needs to be handquilted.

 The squirrel (and the curtains! so much detail) just kill me.

 A pile of vintage fabric scraps.

 Vintage candle clips.

 And the quilt drought ended too. I hadn't bought a quilt since November I think.  This one will be sold.

 This one will be kept.

 Apparently I failed to save a copy of the close up, I will put it on Instagram. Scrappy string stars. They are not quilted well, but I love the piecing.

 A piece of Hull pottery that I couldn't resist (even though I do not have my pottery out at the moment).

 And two huge antique mirrors. I am currently trying them in different places in the house looking for the right spot for them.

 The basket on this one is so awesome. I was actually on my way out of the sale dragging so much stuff when I spotted this one and added it to my pile.

That's my chandelier in the reflection. :)

So, an awesome haul this year and much needed!

A quilty leftover - pastel confection

 After every quilt I make I take a little time to retidy up my sewing area. Put away the tools, store the left over fabric, and put the left over pieces into a donate bag. (I just never scrap quilt. I don't know why really other than there are so many darn quilts I want to make!)

This time I was gathering up a pile of left over HST and thought these are just so pretty and I am in between quilts at the moment...so lets just sew them together!

Once they were sewn together I started a little math, sorting out the best way to get the biggest quilt out of them and this little beauty was born.

 I REALLY love this one! So pretty and light and soft and all from stuff laying around my sewing room except for the dots. I did need another half yard of those.

Plus it was fast and required no thinking.

Win win!

She is already sold and off to bless a new baby too.

Pastel Confection
Started and finished in a few days in Feb 2018
Fabrics are dolly jean for the florals and a black and white micro dot
No real pattern, just put a bunch of HST together and made it work
Cotton batt
White on the back
Straight line quilting
Sold to a new baby!

Thrifted, finally

 I have not really been able to find anything to buy in the thrifts since maybe November?  I have a lot of (perhaps crazy) theories about how the thrift store relates to the housing market, but maybe I am just crazy. (It seems like when the housing market dives the thrifts are packed with stuff and people, when the housing market booms the thrifts are empty of both stuff and people. Maybe they feel flush with cash so they just throw it all away? I don't really know the why.)  Yesterday I did manage to scrounge up a few things. Christmas things even! My first awesome stocking found in the wild, FREE antique tinsel (woohoo!) and a few elves.

 This is what the thrift looks like though.

Tragic right?

It's March finally. Depending on the weather we are about a month out from the restart of garage sale and flea market season. Hopefully things pick up? If not, expect to keep seeing nothing but sewing here on ye olde blog.