Those awesome thrift store finds

In my post about Santa Fe, I forgot to mention that we stopped in at The Needle's Eye yarn shop to buy some crewel yarn, which is rather hard to find. I haven't discovered a place in Albuquerque to buy any.

Well, the other day, I was way across town and stopped in at a thrift store. And what did I find? A huge bag of crewel yarn, for $7.99. It was stuffed to the brim!

Unfortunately, much of it turned out to be synthetic, and I despise working with synthetic yarn. I'll wear a store-bought sweater of synthetic yarn, but I don't like working with it. Also, real crewel should be done with wool. I was happy to find that there was a fair amount of real wool in the bag, too, but I've got tons of this crappy kind and I'm not sure what to do with it. I guess I can lower my standards and use it if I need the colors.

Here is my mom's cat buried in it, a bad pic taken with my camera phone.



Speaking of thrift store finds, I have tried to stop buying vintage sheets, but I did come across this fun pillowcase.

Multi-colored alouette

A French reader informed me after a recent post that alouette is a type of bird. I'm sure it looks nothing like the bird in this post, but that word sure is fun to say.

It also made me want to see what the song was about (see this post). Well, it is quite disturbing actually. It's about plucking the feathers off of a poor bird.

The following information is from wikipedia, the source of all truths. The last line is the best. I started off making it blue, so it would stand out. But I think red is a more appropriate color:

Alouette, gentille Alouette

Skylark, nice skylark

Alouette, je te plumerai

Skylark, I shall pluck you

Je te plumerai la tête

I shall pluck your head

(Je te plumerai la tête)

(I shall pluck your head)

Et la tête

And your head

(Et la tête)

(And your head)

Alouette

Skylark

(Alouette)

(Skylark)

O-o-o-oh

Alouette, gentille Alouette

Alouette, je te plumerai

Je te plumerai le bec

I shall pluck your beak

(Je te plumerai le bec)

Et le bec

(Et le bec)

Et la tête

(Et la tête)

Alouette

(Alouette)

O-o-o-oh

The song continues in this fashion, with the italicized phrase (a part of the bird) in each verse being substituted with a new one, with the previous items being recited at the end:

• Et le cou

And your neck

• Et le dos

And your back

• Et les ailes

And your wings

• Et les pattes

And your legs

• Et la queue

And your tail

• Et la coeur

And your heart

• Et les poumons

And your lungs

• Et la cerveau

And your brain

La Conclusion

The Ending

O-o-o-o-oh

Alouette, gentille Alouette

Skylark, nice skylark

Alouette,

Skylark,

• 'Tu est un torse saignant

You are a bloody torso

Oh. My. God. I don't even plan these posts. Seriously, I just start typing and weird things come out. I'm like, "Oh, I think I'll go Google this sweet song about a bird with a pretty name."

OK, so let's pretend that alouettes are happy and pretty and have all their feathers. And that they are brown and red and blue. Here's one now!




I embroidered a vintage dresser scarf for my Grandma's birthday. I am new to embroidery, so I'm really proud of this bird. I tried to make it look like feathers. I added a few flowers to the sides and some curlicues.

I think I have actually run out of time

I officially do not have enough time for all of my hobbies. I used to have it all figured out:

work out before work (I work a swing shift)
read on my dinner break
knit after work while watching TV with Markles
sew on my days off

Note: this does not seem to leave time for cleaning. The one thing that seems to motivate me to clean is the threat that someone may come over. That turns me into an instant cleaning madwoman. If they don't come over, that's OK. My house is clean. So invite yourself over. Or at least threaten to.

But now I have a new hobby: embroidery. And I've been thrifting. And antiquing. And quilting. And I still want to work on my pattern drafting skills. Dear, God! I haven't the time for it all. The house work will definitely have to be dropped, company or not.

Here are my first embroidery projects. The transfers are from "The Kitchen Linens Book" by EllynAnne Geisel. See this post.



The back of the book includes a bunch of vintage iron-on transfers, reproductions from a McCalls 1945 line.



These are done on flour sack cloths purchased at Hobby Lobby in the needlework section.




They're so happy, those fruits, candies and ... uh ... whatever that thing on the right is.

I also went to thrift stores and bought a bunch of blank linens. I selected only ones that appeared to be cotton or linen. I got some napkins (which I use just on a day to day basis, so I don't need full, matching sets) and a dresser scarf and a table square. All blank canvases that I can embroider, and all 99 cents to $1.99. Can't beat that! I'm thinking of embroidering the dresser scarf for my grandma's birthday on Aug. 8.

I love the flowers on this dainty little napkin. This was so fast to do, too.



Furthermore, I discovered a Web site so wonderful, I could burst. Or spend all of my money there. Or both. It's called Sublime Stitching. And it proves that old-fashioned women's work is perfectly cool and trendy. And not old-fashioned at all. Go check out the transfer patterns. (But then come back. I'm not done.)

((tick-tock, tick-tock))

Did you go look? Aren't they the cutest things ever? I bought her book, "Sublime Stitching" by Jenny Hart, too. It's also filled with transfer patterns, albeit more generic ones than the patterns you can buy online. I ordered this one and this one off the site.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

I would also like to mention another thrift store find in the fabric section (or "material," they call it. I find that only people who don't sew call it "material" instead of fabric. And considering that they priced a small piece of muslin at $6 AT A THRIFT STORE, I am fairly certain that they don't sew).

What I found was a two-yard piece of pinstriped wool. Real wool! Like what you cannot find at chain stores like JoAnn's. Or at least, I never do. Real wool! Like the kind that costs $14 a yard.

How do I know it's real wool? Well, I did a burn test. Did you know you can get at least a rough idea of a fabric's fiber content by burning it? I learned this in Fabric Science class. Pull off a few strands from the fraying end and hold them with tweezers. This is important. DO NOT use your fingers. Next, bring a flame toward it. First, note if the fibers shrink back from the flame. Wool should do this. Then it should ignite, and it should burn a little and then self-extinguish. It should smell like burning hair (no surprise). Finally, the burned residue should be slightly hard, but easily crushable between your fingers.

All fibers have different reactions. For instance, polyester sort of melts, so the bead if forms after it burns is hard, like plastic. And the smell is awful.

So, now I know it is really wool. And I know you are impressed that I got two yards of it for $5.99. Because my husband doesn't appreciate my find. He says it looks like "poor-people clothes." And like it belongs on people in an orphanage.

Bah. Maybe he should go take a closer look at his suits.

Sucked in to the dark vacuum of used bargains

I wanted to sew today, my day off. And I will, but it's now nearly 6 p.m. and I haven't started. That's because try as I might, I can't stay away from thrift stores and antique shops. Yep, I went back to "Antique Mile" today.

While all the old-houses-turned-vintage-shop locations are quaint and charming, the air-conditioning is bad to nonexistent. Considering the 100+ heat wave we're having here, I about died. I was forced to stop for a hamburger, fries and Coke at Blake's Lotaburger on the way home. It cured me.

Anyway, I did buy a set of four embroidered napkins, but no picture of those today.

Here are my thrift store finds:

A ceramic, handmade lemon juicer for $3.99. I'm always wishing I had a lemon juicer. The bottom is carved with "M Bennett." I wonder who that is.



And a giant bag of thread, also $3.99. I needed to go buy gray thread today anyway, and probably would have spent half as much on that one that I spent on this whole bag. I know old thread can be bad, but most of this looks really new.



Plus, there's gray thread in there.

Finally, remember that embroidered cloth with cats on it that was unfinished and I asked what to do with it? I think I'll cut it in half and hem, and make two napkins out of it. In the meantime, a certain real-life kitty has made herself quite at home on that kitty-cat linen.

Savers is not aware of the market for vintage sheets

I totally scored at the thrift store today when I went to check out if it got any "new" vintage sheets in. I'm trying to make the Nine Pillowcase Quilt, but in my excitement over finding vintage sheets on my first trip, I ended up with a bunch of white backgrounds. I wanted some with more bold color to mix it up.

I've looked online, but people on eBay and etsy are quick to mark up the prices, because it seems people are interested in other people's old, used sheets. Yummy. But the basic thrift store is not yet aware and prices them at 99 cents to $3.99.

As I reported before, I did find a vintage sheet swap group on flickr, but you only get tiny 7x7 inch squares. I managed to pick up a few colorful pieces.

I made another trip at one point to Savers and one to Goodwill, and neither had any brightly colored vintage sheets. Well, today, I got some awesome ones. A very pink, a very blue and one with ugly orange stripes!



And here are my swap pieces, followed by the rest of the sheets I'd picked up before: