Category Archives: thrifting

December 2, 2015 · 1:00 AM

Dirty old things

We’ve got a decent ReStore nearby – luckily not too close or I’d go too often, but not too far that you have to plan to go. We had an entirely awesome architectural salvage store in our old city that I dearly miss, but still visit when passing through, and though this doesn’t replace it, in some ways it’s more practical because it carries a wider variety of smaller-scaled items (and I’m no longer in the market for a victorian mantle anyway). We found a good mid-century dresser there, a near-mint wool kilim rug, and the typical bits we usually bring home from thrift stores like records and books and fabric scraps.

On my last visit, I scored an old sewing machine box.

I’ve got a partially boxless machine that has been topless for nearly 20 years. Once in awhile I’d dick around on ebay debating about buying one, but usually balked at the shipping price, so this was a classic example of finally finding something for which I’d given up looking. And oddly enough, it was already in half of an old Morse box.

But the best part is that it was saved – yes, it’s dirty and stained and a bit smelly, but it still serves a good purpose in a way that nothing new can. Granted, that’s a given because I’m using something old on something old and the whole thing is a no shit sherlock kind of thing… But many/most people would have probably thrown the thing out? Or the thrift store might have dumpstered it? In fact, the half-naked machine had a complete case, but the thrift store threw out the top because the handle was broken off, or something along those lines, and unfortunately just before I bought it too… or so said the clerk who might have just been itching to see a long face…

So the machine has some new vintage digs albeit much younger than the machine itself. I had also been intending to un-electrify this machine and put it back in a nice treadle cabinet like it originally came in, but until that lucky happenstance comes along, I can at least store and use it a bit more securely.

And then I’ll see if anyone needs the bottom part of an old Morse box – I need to check the rest of mine first though – I know I have one that the little post things that hold the machine are broken, but don’t know if the lid will fit the bottom – unfortunately even though these are all a universal size, the clasps that hold the two parts together can differ – these two Morses from approximately the same time period didn’t – one had clasps 1/4″ longer than the other…

During our most recent vacation, we stopped in a Goodwill in Maine. I love seeing the local flavor coming through in used shit and stop at thrifts whenever I can when I’m on the road. I was hoping to find some good old hard-wearing woolens, but silly me, in the land of frugality, of course they wouldn’t just be chucked in the charity bin but used until they were entirely shredded and then stuffed in the walls for insulation or given to the dog.

So I poked around the household items even though I’ve banned myself from buying any more plates ever.

And I fell hard for these dirty old things.

At $4 for the whole lot, can you blame me? And they’ve got a bit of green and yellow and orange, my favorite colors? And they’re from the time period that I’m most drawn to in terms of household things?

But what I like best was that they were clearly salvaged from an old garage, barn, abandoned house, unrepaired attic, root cellar, or someplace long neglected and not suitable for proper china storage…

…but someone made the effort to chuck them in a box and haul them in for someone else.

The set isn’t really one – mostly dessert* dishes and a couple smaller and one larger. They aren’t in the best shape and are delicate-ish, therefore not entirely practical, but the worst ones are still useful for holding drippy or dry things (soap or sewing bits) and the good ones will be perfect for the occasional dessert…

(This is just one quarter of a very tasty polenta bar.)

*They’re probably actually luncheon plates instead of dessert plates, and though I think today’s plates are obscenely large and use “lunch” plates for my “dinner” plates on a daily basis, these would only hold the daintier finger sammies… And they’re made by W. H. Grindley & Co., England, but I can’t find the name of the pattern – according to a random website, the mark dates c. 1914-1925 – anyone recognize it?

Necking

I like a GIANT squishy cowl neck.

I like scarves wound round and round and round my neck.

But I hate turtlenecks.

Even though they pop back in and out of style, I generally view them as always out – and smelling of elementary schools in the 70s and overly religious Midwestern mothers who dress decades beyond their age. But mostly I don’t like the feeling of my neck being oh-so-slightly constricted.

I’ve de-turtled a few necks over the years.

(This one also got de-epauleted and de-shoulder padded, and de-gold buttoned – then I sewed the epaulets into the fake pocket to make a whimsical detail of sorts.)

Very often, there is a convenient seam running up the side of the neck that merely needs to be unzipped or picked and voila! A constricting turtle becomes a floppy…

manta ray? collar.

I’ve been going through my bins of thrifted sweaters to see what should be cut up into mittens and such, unraveled, or mended enough to wear…

And I found this horribly weird pinkish, orchid? one that fits really well and lies on the “professionally” appropriate side of the fine line that it skates with comfortably slouchy – partly because it’s actually a decent length on me and many thrifted cashmeres fall a bit too short.

But even after the turtlectomey, I’m debating about tossing it into the to dye pile, but I run the risk of loosing the good length… and though I think I hate the color, I think I can wear it without looking ill, and it goes well enough with browns or greys…

(I’d probably dye it yellow to turn it orange, or go the burgundy or brown route…)

Turtles are also often the easiest part of a sweater to frog since they’re often knitted in rib stitch and don’t felt/full as much as the body. I’ve had several moth-eaten thrifts that were too holey or felted to frog as a whole, but still gave up good bits of usable yarn from frogged necks and cuffs.

Or merely extracted, they make good headbands or hat brims…

And once in awhile, a decent cowl will get detached too – most often from my own sweaters that have generally ceased to function as intended.

And it can remain cowly, just no longer attached to a body…

This was actually a favorite sweater of mine for about 10 years, so I’m happy to save part of it now that it is done being part of my wardrobe due to damage and too tight sleeves that always annoyed me but now are entirely unacceptable after the home reno and summer of gardening (big guns don’t play well with sheer skinny mohair). And I’ll attempt to frog the rest even though I swore off frogging mohair – if it works, I might knit more rounds onto the cowl to make it GIANT.

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Filed under collecting, dyeing, knitting, recycling, sewing, thrifting

Tagged as cashmere sweaters, frogging, green, knitting, mohair, orchid, re-fashion, re-use, sewing, thrift store sweaters, thrifting, thriftscore, turtleneck sweaters, turtlenecks, unraveling, wool

June 10, 2015 · 6:00 AM

A time to dye

I had one of those stupid frustrating telecommuting days last week wherein I couldn’t connect with my work computer…

and couldn’t connect with a person there who could re-connect my computer to me…

So I couldn’t work, but I had plans to work so that I’d have time later in the week to do some non-work work, and I really couldn’t stand not being able to get the work work over and was frustrated and pissy and feeling like I didn’t exist – a feeling probably common to telecommuters, but I don’t know any others so it might just be me, and there are times when in fact, I do not exist…

So I did something I hadn’t planned on doing any time soon to ease my unease.

I thrifted some comfy but insanely red linen pants last year, and though I like bold color, I have a few red t-shirts, many green t-shirts, and most often wear a pair of yellow sandals, so I either looked like a cardinal (bird), Christmas, or condiments if I wore any of them with the pants.

(And I don’t really like yellow mustard, especially next to ketchup).

I also had a sorry once lavender t-shirt, and a commercially sewn floral canvas bag that served its purpose at the time, but I never use anymore and keep almost getting rid of it…

I also have a few old boxes of that powdered dye knocking about, so I simmered the threesome in teal (which really was more turquoise).

I wanted the pants to be anything other than bright red, and was hoping for burgundy, purplish, brown, or some murkier variation thereof.

And now all is well, except for the bag – I’m really ready to get rid of it finally.

I know the dye won’t stick around forever, and I know well enough to only wash these things with darker things, but since the pants and shirt were already old, the dye should hopefully hold up for the rest of their lifespans, or else the yellow sandals might wear out by the time the pants become red again…

And it also became evident that the pant’s manufacturer made no effort to match the inside button to the outside and/or made the inside button match the outside, but the outside button an odd beige (now pleasingly turquoise) accent piece…?

Or perhaps the original owner replaced it…

Either way, now I’m either a giant gradient when wearing a red t-shirt, pleasantly almost-complementary when wearing green, and let’s just say I’m enjoying a robust red with something mustard-schmeared…

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Filed under dyeing, recycling, thrifting

Tagged as cotton, dye, dyeing, linen pants, renewing clothes, teal, thrift store clothes, turquoise

June 3, 2015 · 6:00 AM

When the drapes became the bedspread

It’s been the time of year when I have to give up my much loved down duvet for a lighter bed covering for a few weeks now.

I have to shamefully admit that we’ve been using a plain green store-bought quilt for the last few summers since buying a bigger bed. (And I still haven’t gotten around to finishing a bigger quilt… yes, that shirt one I started years ago isn’t any further along, and it is even further from my thoughts.)

I’m thinking of other quilts I’d like to make, but I don’t really have the space or patience right now to make one as big as I’d like – at least king-sized, though the bed is a queen – so I accepted another summer of the boring commercially-made thing.

Then a week or two ago, I stopped by the thrift store to find some summer pants to replace the ones I intentionally (and not) turned into paint pants, and happened to wander by the home textiles – a land of either intimately disgusting, or wonderfully fabulous, textilely things. In the past I’ve scored vintage drapes and tablecloths that I’ve re-sold well online, and our current perfect-condition woolly throw blankets are pre-owned.

This time, a set of jacquard toile drapes – two panels and two valances – caught my eye and passed my it’s-pleasant-to-the-touch, seems to be natural fibers, and doesn’t stink or have gross stains test (though the dye had bled and the fabric was a bit puckered from a hot wash or dry). I passed them by, but came back just before leaving, figuring I could use the fabric to make knitting bags…

or perhaps, a bedspread?

Now, the fabric really isn’t my thing. I collected blue and white dishes for only a half a second in my past, once put a cobalt blue wine bottle on the kitchen windowsill for a few weeks, and only have just a few toile pieces in my stash. I like deer, but don’t like hunting scenes, and the over-the-top romanticism?

No, because it falls in with things I don’t like such as the paler pinks and purples, some peach (but not peaches), pearlized things, potpourri, Precious Moments, things with panache, plump, perfume, things with poof and pounce, pathetic romance novels, and most of all:

putti.

And our house is an amalgamation of mid-century modern, late 19th century office, Italian/Moroccan/New Mexican fusion, and art school detritus – nothing frilly or froofy or sickeningly sentimental between our walls.

But I wanted this perfect-weight cottony thing on the bed.

And so it is.

I cut the curtains in half, alternated the right and wrong sides, and added one of the valances.

I wanted it to be reversible, so I sewed twill tape over the seams. I wanted to dye the tape, but I figured that would set the project back days or years. The seams on the tape are a bit wonky due to my impatience and the difficulty in shoving this huge heavy thing into my old machine on a too-small table, but it is a practical piece that will get laundered and abused, so perfection is pointless.

And I think I like the tape side better as the public side…?

So now I can slumber under slaughter-in-progress deer, and hope the putti don’t plunk down in my dreams…

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Filed under collecting, home, home decor, quilts, recycling, sewing, thrifting

Tagged as bedspreads, blue and white, coverlets, jacquard, putti, recycling, repurposing, sewing, textiles, toile, twill tape, upcycling

April 22, 2015 · 6:00 AM

Continuing randomly…

Those premature daffodils finally fell to some conquering beauties.

I’ve been puttering about the yard, finally paying attention to what is what out there and making plans to move some things around and add more. My research on native deer-resistant plants is just beginning, but I’ve got a decent list so far – at least for this year. The big project is expanding the vegetable garden 4-5 times the size it is now and installing a beefy deer fence… More on that later, I’m sure (after my arms recover from post hole digging, even though N is doing most of it).

My studio/workspace is still a partially unpacked mess, but I’ve run out of storage room, and once I start working on things, it will probably always look like a partially unpacked mess. But I need to clear a table to cut out a few simple patterns for summer clothes I intend to make but likely the seasons will change again before I get around to that…

I wanted some mohair to add to an upcoming knitting project, so I found it in this boxy 1980s bright beauty at a thrift store last year.

Remind me to never, ever, harvest mohair (at least this particular mohair mix) again. I’ve only finished the sleeves, which I think will be enough – especially since I took it an asinine step further and separated the plys to make even more… But perhaps the leftover body parts can be sewn into an enormous baby chick.

Speaking of baby chicks, I keep seeing them in the farm stores and I’ve got some serious baby rabies of the poultry strain…

But not this year – too many things to continue to get in shape and major fortifications would need to be made for some hens – I’m looking at you, you beautiful but murderous fox (and the hawks and raccoon and cats).

I finished that old shale (or feather and fan, but that’s wrong, right?) thing. It was supposed to be a dramatic drapey wide shawl – something that could be whipped around and trailed behind – but I ran out of yarn. It was harvested from an old mohair blend sweater (this one was easy to rip) and an old Shetland one, so there was zero chance of obtaining more, and I wasn’t interested in adding another color, though as I write this, perhaps I will consider adding something more blended with the Shetland at either end…? But more likely, I will turn this into a shrug – somewhat still dramatic with wide scalloped sleeves and a back at a reasonable length – I hate cropped shrugs, at least on me. The problem is, I was planning on selling this, I don’t like the color on me and don’t have the appropriate flowing navy or brown or black outfit with which to pair it. But it fits my weird ape-armed curvy but lanky body, and for many, the sleeves would be too long…. So perhaps I’ll try blocking it wider rather than longer, but I wanted the scalloped ends to pop out more…

And even though I ran out of yarn for the length I wanted, the fiber gods smiled down on me for allowing the finishing to happen with the appropriate number of repeats and bind-off with only 6 inches of yarn to spare… that’s satisfaction.

I finished spinning that beautiful New Mexico cashmere.

But this picture is a lying liar about its tumultuous youth.

Yes, it is beautiful now, finally, but…

…things got a bit kinky for a bit…

I wanted a rustic, bumpy, somewhat thick and thin single. But I still, always, over spin singles. So I had to run it through again to take out twist. But short staple + too thin parts = break, break, breaks!

In the end, it is good – goodly soft – but thin, something from cobweb to light fingering. I haven’t decided on a good pattern for it yet – I want a neck thing, preferably something simple and relatively dense, meaning not much lace if any… Might end up with a simple garter something or other… It’s about 650 yards if anyone has any suggestions?

In the meantime, I dig and dig and dig and now weed too, and get awfully distracted making wreaths out of pruned wisteria vine… I can’t wait for it to bloom to find out if we’ve got the native stuff or the evil import…

Stash flash – the commercial yarn edition

I’m not a huge fan of stash flashing.

Sometimes it just seems like crass showing off, sometimes I think of the world’s starving people, sometimes I think it’s a little funny when a middle age woman poses naked with it in a bathtub*, sometimes it gives me anxiety of having too much, sometimes it gives me anxiety about having too much of one thing but not the needed thing, and sometimes I’ll admit I’m a little jealous.

But we reached a milestone on the house – the floors and walls are done in all of the main rooms – so I’m finally moving into my teeny tiny studio and figuring out how to cram everything in.

And part of that involves taking stock of my yarn stash.

It was in relatively decent storage – a few big plastic tubs – but sock yarn was mixed in with sweater quantities was mixed in with random cones of mystery fiber…

And of course there was yarn shoved into other yarn…

Everything needed to be aired out – there was the odd unfortunate odor of our old apartment’s carpeting trapped inside some of the tubs, and a few lavender sachets lost their pleasant one. But all was well – no evidence of wool-munching crawling or flying f*ckers.

The sock and fingering weight yarns are now separated out into their own bin and I know I don’t need to shop for the stuff possibly ever again. I’d been wanting to make some jolly-colored tights for years now, but I haven’t even considered casting on for them, so maybe it’s okay to just make one pair of socks from one of three skeins, or consider making a blanket. I’d really like to make some pants, but though I’d like wacky tights, I’d rather have more dull pants (trousers to my friends across the pond) though I do adore my wool pants (underwear).

Need I remind you that I got everything really cheap? Yeah, the internet is good for that, as are Italian markets and those newer craft/construction materials thrift shops. I’ve been picking up the odd cone of stuff for a few years – I thought I’d be weaving by now and dying more too… And I do intend to use some of it in spinning…

My old favorite Lamb’s Pride is all in one place now too – this is one of the few yarns I have sweater quantities of – large coat or king-sized afghan quantities… I fell into a brief obsessive love with mosaic knitting several years ago and planned to make a cozy big long coat. I got a billion yards of two shades of green on the cheap online, but the colors weren’t contrasty enough and besides, I never got around to finding or making up a pattern, so it sits and waits…

And the bulky green in the bottom right was, for a short time and twice, an Owls sweater, but I never got the sizing right, so I frogged it and gave up.

I’m in love with that old gold greenish shade “golden mushroom” in the upper left, so it’s high time I cracked it open… I love nearly every shade of green though, so I’ve got some thinking to do…

On the day that I organized this stuff I had one of those disturbing time warps wherein I missed lunch. I never miss lunch. And the day was pretty much shot – I feel a bit guilty overall for “wasting” the time and that I have so much, yet I can’t part with it either. I got some of it up on ravelry, so I may sell some things if asked. But I also don’t really need any more clothes or blankets, so my knitting mojo for anything other than gifts, sales, or a few smaller accessories is pretty flat at the moment.

I’d like to replace a few commercial sweaters with me-knitted ones, but the ones I wear most often are grey. Do you see any grey yarn up there? Nope.

And since I work from home, I need nothing. Absolutely nothing. I don’t get the people who work from home or stay at home and are crazy prolific garment sewers and knitters… where and when do they wear the many, many things that they make?

(And I still have loads of yarn from unraveled sweaters, a nice bunch of that lovely Italian wool, and a smallish (relatively speaking) amount of handspun.)

And though I accomplished a needed organizing job that day, I ultimately failed when I realized that there’s still another box/bag/tub of the stuff somewhere…

*I’ve seen a few of these on ravelry, but sadly can’t find one at the moment for you – and no, I won’t do that.

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Filed under collecting, knitting, thrifting

Tagged as balls, brown sheep, bulky, cone yarn, fingering yarn, green, heywood wakefield, lamb's pride, skeins, sock yarn, stash, wool, worsted, yarn

January 7, 2015 · 7:46 AM

Welcome January…

I’ve bitched about the holidays before, so I’ll spare you my annual rant and expressions of joy that it’s all over.

Except… the armchair epidemiologist in me was especially piqued and horrified this year following various blog and f*ckbook posts wherein a family gathering/food decorating/potluck event ended in various shared and publicized GI viruses – and many that started at Thanksgiving continued to pass around through giftmas… My worst of the worst nightmare.

People, keep your hands and all of your juices, exhalations, coughs, schmears, sneezes, and hearty wet laughs out of food and away from others.

(And if a baby pukes it is because he is sick and is entirely and hugely contagious and everything and everyone around him much be bleached and quarantined and all gatherings cancelled until the incubation period is over.)

Moving on, and a brief public service announcement…

A heads-up to those reading this through ravelry and/or if you have a blog fed through there as well – the feed thing hasn’t been working right, so posts haven’t been updating since November – not sure what’s going on, but I re-entered my address and it seems to be working now.

I’m glad to see 2014 go – for no specific reason, I’m not a fan of years ending in 4.

Yes, we got out of a shit apartment and finally snagged a house, but it’s been a helluva lot of work. The more fun part of working in the yard will come this year.

(A yard that contains many beasts such as this finally spotted Pileated Woodpecker, deer, and a still yet elusive fox.)

But I’ve been hobbled by a torn meniscus and been made entirely weepily furious about the American healthcare system… And that does require a rant – I have elaborated in this sister post.

I made some stuff and will make some more this year – that’s the summary and the resolution.

And I have a deep, burning desire to become a minimalist…

But I can’t when we still need to get stuff for the house.

I misjudged the interrogative harshness of the new ceiling light in our dining room and missed the window of time to return it, so we’re lighting the room more tolerably with a few vintage lamps that we snagged on the cheap from junk shops in other states over the last couple of months.

I didn’t want to get too many new things for the house since it is smaller than our last, and I’m not a big enough fan of the mid-century aesthetic, but we were lacking in lighting already, and more than one lamp suffered in our various moves. And these few bits of mid-century do help to tie the rooms with the house, albeit eclectically, but eclectic is the only way for me.

But I’m ready to re-paint the dining room already – it was the one major paint color fail. It was our favorite color in our old house, but for whatever mysterious reason, it just doesn’t work here… it’s supposed to be a soft earthy orange leaning to yellow, but it’s beige in daylight and gold with the lights on… odd and disappointing.

But though I’m not really in love with the mid-century, I do really like Heywood Wakefield furniture from that time period – it’s pretty much the only mid-century furniture I do like, and I don’t like anything later than their lines that started in the late 1940s. I’ve been on the hunt for a reasonably priced dining room set since we were in the older house and we’ve been trolling the usual internet sites and cheaper (though they really aren’t) antique stores around us, but we’re just too damn close to too many cities with residents willing to pay way more than they should for anything.

So it came as an utter whopping surprise that we recently won an auction of a mother-lode of Heywood Wakefield “Encore” (1948-1955) bedroom furniture!

And we needed nearly all of it – we didn’t have any dressers (left them in the old house because they were too heavy), and N’s current desk is falling apart – the headboard will go on a guest bed.

We got all of it for less than what new really cheap furniture would cost even after factoring in the truck rental – nay, it was pretty much the price of buying it all from a thrift store! However, I was immensely fearful because it was an online auction… the furniture could reek of mothballs, unwashed clothing from unwashed bodies, cat piss, cigarettes, and Shalimar…

And we knew the finish was a bit worn in places, which is usually the case with this furniture, but I can’t deal with stench – cat piss and mothballs are deal breakers for me….

But all is well – it is all in the house and full of our stuff now.

It does stink a little – by way of something like Shalimar or Jean Nate – a certain old lady scent, but it’s not too strong – not like thrift store costume jewelry. And one half of the headboard smells like coconuts.

Vintage contact paper is adhered to every drawer as well, but it is okay and will stay.

The finish on the tops is really pretty bad though – we’ll need to address that at some point, but for now, that’s what dresser scarves are for. The desk is pretty poor though – looks like there was a leaky plant pot on top – we’ve already started to sand it a tiny bit, but we’re not sure how we’re going to finish it yet. The original finish is impossible to duplicate and the top coat was balls to begin with, so I’m doing some research…

4 Comments

Filed under collecting, home, home decor, thrifting

Tagged as 1950s house, aladdin lamp, bad paint color, blond furniture, chex mix, disease, encore, epidemiology, hatred of holidays, heywood wakefield, midcentury modern, nuts and bolts, vintage lamps, vintage lighting, wheat finish

November 18, 2014 · 7:15 AM

Meet the rest of my sewing machines

A sequel to my first post about some of my mechanical herd…

I’m finally reunited with the two “lost” sewing machines trapped for too long in storage.

I’m a sucker for a pink Atlas – my other one has been a favorite over the years, and this one still hasn’t gone for a test drive since the cord is cut. I found it on garbage day (or maybe the night before) on my old street. I can’t remember if I was late for work and trotting down the long hill to the bus, but found this and had to lug it back up and start all over again and ended up being really late, or I found it at the end of dusk slogging up the hill after a long day at work and it made my day. Either way, I schlepped this beast up a fairly substantial hill and haven’t gotten around to rewiring it for more than a decade.

And my fuzzy memory about rescuing it from its dump fate is because I found and lugged home lots of great sh*t on that street – including an old metal headboard from one of those old long narrow beds that prompted the comment by a passerby, “Do you always carry your bed with you?” And I believed I said yes, I’m very tired. But I don’t know what happened to that – I think it was a casualty in the move from that place…

And this Singer hasn’t had much love – I’m pretty sure it’s a 66, and maybe I already had that 99 and got this thinking it was the same and I could use it for parts? All I know was it was an early thrift find and I don’t remember if it works now, and maybe I’ll part with it eventually.

So I am done buying old sewing machines… unless I find one that has stitch functions I don’t have, is non-electrically operated (like a treadle in a lovely cabinet), or something that is uniquely and fantastically awesome – and all must be for a great price and reasonably sound condition. So, I’m really not in the market for them anymore unless I find something truly special. And that’s a problem. I wasn’t looking for a zig-zag machine a few weeks ago because I had been looking for the last 15 years or so and gave up – then, presto!

This lovely beast followed me home.

My current localish thrift is pretty decent – not a lot of vintage stuff, but good prices – I got this for $12.99.

Not sure what the inked-on “W” marks or means – hopefully wonderful or wondrous or woo hoo or wildly fantastic or wicked good or woot or wow, and not wonky or wah or wacky or whoops or whoop-de-doo…

I’m also not sure if and how well it works yet, but the needle goes up and down which is the most crucial part. So as long as I can get this up and running, and if I ever get around putting a hand crank on one of my others, then I’m really not in the market for another, right? (Really, I’m not trying to jinx myself for the better, I don’t want more heavy old things).

I’ve never owned a new, or less than 40-years-old, sewing machine but I’ve been wanting a serger for some time. I never felt I had a right (or the money) to buy one since I wanted it for making napkins and small bags and such, and those things can be made with any machine, just with folding and ironing added to the mix. But I wanted to take out folding and ironing, and in some cases, preserve as many millimeters of the fabric as I could, so I asked for and received this for my last “big” birthday – thank you mom & dad!

I took it out for a test run a bit ago, and it’s going to be fun and quite useful, but like the others, it’s waiting patiently and safely until I get its room in shape, and more importantly, I find the damn bolts and wing nuts for the tables to put it on.

(And my brain is on an endless loop saying: “janome-baloney, janome-baloney, janomey-baloney…”)

So it’s even more fitting that my last find was a New Home/Janome to go with my new serger – hopefully it will teach its younger sibling lessons in durability and perseverance.

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Filed under collecting, home, sewing, thrifting

Tagged as collecting, janome, metal, new home, old sewing machines, old stuff is better than new stuff, serger, sewing, Singer, thrifting, trash picking, zigzag

November 12, 2014 · 6:00 AM

What’s in the basket?

Not my brother…*

I say I’m on a buying of all things, especially old things, hiatus… perhaps even a lifetime ban.

But I couldn’t resist a gourd.

I could plant some gourds, I could probably get one free from a neighbor, but I actually paid $4.00 for this one.

Why?

Because it was used as a darning egg!

And came with a basket filled with other useful things.

Needles are always handy and I love that they used to be promotional items (not to mention I love the graphic design and re-use of other little packages)…

And things that were once made in Europe but are now made in China…

(the notions, not the dust wads.)

And evidence that the original owner was perhaps a Nervous Nellie as well as a photographer…

And another mysterious notion – what is it?

It’s got “Waldes Perfex” stamped on it as a registered trademark. I couldn’t find the trademark, but several patents on “Perfex” exist for textile, cleaning, and photography products. I find anecdotal evidence of others finding these with old knitting supplies, so perhaps they’re stitch markers? They seem a bit pokey and impractical though… I can’t think of an application for them with photography unless these were poked through the sprockets in film for some reason or another…?

Anyone know what they are?

I’ve never seen the movie, but I just might have to check it out…

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Filed under recycling, sewing, thrifting

Tagged as 1990s, basket, basket case, darning egg, eon, film canister, gourd, matchbox, nervine, perfex, pins, rave, raves, sewing basket, sewing needles, sewing notions, spools, techno, thimble, thread, thrift score, thrift store, vintage stuff, waldes perfex

October 1, 2014 · 6:09 AM

In praise of N…

I’m taking most of the credit for our house fixing-upping, and since I only work work part-time at the moment, I do put in several more hours/days a week on it, but N isn’t just sitting around on his ass either (unless I am too and we’re taking a much needed break).

His work is often stealthy and surprising – like whipping up a work bench while I’m painting a room (and possibly cursing under my breath that he isn’t helping, but then I find out he he was doing something very useful and necessary). Or taking care of some little annoying paint/patch/trim detail in the morning when he’s up at an ungodly hour and I’m still snoozing.

He’ll take out toilets and do some minor electrical tinkering – things I either really don’t want to do, or don’t feel comfortable doing.

And take care of all of the floor and ceiling trim cutting – something I’m quite capable of doing, but waste more and bitch about a lot more.

And he’s a machine when it comes to hacking out massive patches of invasive species – at the last house it was bamboo, this one is Japanese Knotweed (of which we still haven’t quite gained the upper hand).

And please, anyone who is reading – never plant bamboo and Japanese Knotweed!!!!!

And the part I find most crucial on a daily basis is that he’s the cook (again, I am capable of doing so, but I could exist most nights on scrambled eggs and some greens, or pasta-all-the-time) so he keeps it interesting and delicious (I do supply the occasional enormous pot of chili or spontaneous vegetarian concoction).

(sage fritters with an anchovy surprise inside)

But the most kudos go to his willingness and ability to haul my shit. When we first got together, I was bemoaning the fact that I lived in such a small apartment crowded with too many things, and instead of telling me I should purge, he said I just needed a bigger place… though it was possibly one of the most destructively enabling statements anyone has ever tossed at me, I loved it and it was endearing and actually inspired me to get things in better order to some degree, but after three hurried moves in the last few years, things have gotten out of control again.

Our albatross has been a storage locker 5 1/2 hours away that we thought we’d only have for a few months… It turned out to be two years and a few months.

But now it is finally empty and no longer ours!

And I found a couple more sewing machines that I thought I had…

And N was a total beast hauling it all out of the locker, into the truck, out of the truck, and into the house.

Don’t be fooled by the ugly 1980s cover on that chair – it has to weigh close to 200 pounds, is nearly large enough for two, and is from c. 1940 when furniture was made to last out of iron and oak. I’ll be sewing a new cover for it eventually.

And it is a little shocking to see how much stuff* we lived perfectly fine without for two and some years…

And yes, that’s a box of rocks on the bottom…

I promise those won’t be around when and if there’s another move.

(Or else I’ll hide them better).

*In my/our defense, we had two separate households for a few years and needed double the stuff.

[edited to correct some typos]

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Filed under collecting, home, home decor, sewing, thrifting, Uncategorized

Tagged as box of rocks, food, hauling, home improvement, invasive plants, japanese knotweed, manual labor, moving, sage fritters, selflessness, sewing machines, storage lockers, too much stuff, trucks, workbench