Thrifting for "Bitty" and "Blue Baskets"

Happy Monday! I hope you put out your flag in remembrance of 9/11, and if you forgot this year, please consider doing so next year. This event changed our country and our world. Do you know the attacks are not universally taught in US schools now, or taught only as a global overview. The excuse is that the attacks occurred before most students were born.  If we can remember Pearl Harbor---or the Signing of the Declaration of Independence, and we do!---surely this day of infamy must be taught and remembered too.

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 A few weeks ago my friend B [Bea] visited and of course we went out thrifting! She always finds really good clothes!  I didn't have much of a list, more a wait and see kind of attitude.

At least this time I didn't come home empty handed.

Blue, grey, and purple shirts for my free form throw and for Bitty and Blue Baskets*.

I love these Ralph Lauren plaid shirts! The grey is for the Bitty stems that aren't blue.

(*Blue Baskets and Free Form are just ideas at the moment! Blue Baskets will have their main bowl areas made with pieced plaid strips.. I don't know if the ground will be cheddar, handles blue, or ground will be my current fave Basic Grey Distressed muslin "Grunge" HERE, with cheddar handles. I'm hoping for a snowy winter to sit and sew the plaid textiles.) btw, check out the other Grunge ''solids''...I am crazy about the saturated but distressed colors !
And Bitty may need borders. I'll get back to her after I show you what else I found.

Lovely 100% linen tea towels, red and white. set of 8. If I keep them they will be used for Christmas Eve napkins. I love the Nordic look of red and white for Christmas. Or I might put them in my etsy Christmas shop.

Also a single blue and white check linen tea towel. Useful as is or adorable for etsy hearts?

Small sweet sepia polychrome transferware plate.

Unmarked, not terribly old. Prob Johnson Bros.

I love the details, see the acorns and fall berries?

And so sweet, a small tape dispenser.

Silly but I saw those ladybugs and had to have! In all my years of many collections and enthusiasms, I think Ladybugs was my first must-have, from when I was a tiny child. My grandma had a Dresden ladybug, porcelain, oh I loved it so much! Age 3 or 4? I still have it, yes she finally caved and gave it to me.And now all these years later, I still love a piece of ladybug decorated china.  Nice for my work desk, instead of an ugly scotch tape green plastic thing, right?

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Now about Bitty. Bitty has issues.

This weekend I removed all the crooked pointy lollipop flowers that I had sewed on the previous week on the beach, in a gale wind. You'd think after sewing 366 Dotty circles I could sew a decent circle but no. The quilt is too small to hide mistakes and bad sewing. I will redo the lollipop flowers the old-fashioned way, cardboard templates, gathers, starch, iron, remove template = smooth pretty curves.

I removed Bitty's too sugar-sweety wing for now and I moved some of the leaves and second heart around, because they just looked wrong.

Now to me, Bitty is a someday baby quilt, like for my grandma hope chest or a gift to a good friend. It's big enough for a cradle or stroller for a newborn but just barely. I think I will be adding a border, not sure.
I sketched blue [plaid] scallops

or simple swags.

But then, I have this out on my clip board for a little fun Fall treat:

and I noticed it has a really nice prim border design. [by Cheri Payne.] So I'll see how things go.

This week [-end] it has been too buggy to sit outside on the deck. Unusual for us to have no wind, and the flies were biting. Last night I had to run inside, shower and take a Benedryl! The flies even bit poor little Mo!

He had to play inside.

So no Bitty progress! I think I have 4 tiny birds and 3 leaves left to sew, then the stems, then the circle flowers and buds. A couple days' sewing. Instead I made the first Star blocks for Silent Night. Aren't they pretty! I am hoping to recapture my piecing mojo and do nice work on them. I'll piece the lower section of the quilt so that I can applique the snowman scene.

But today...oh! I was well, seduced! By Lori of Humble Quilts new little quilt sewalong. HERE

I hate mystery projects! I always say I won't make another! But I have never been disappointed in a Lori project, always so fun. So I scurried home from Trader Joe's [no mums! but Tempura Cauli! mmm...] and cut out my hundred 2" squares.

I am not good at ''low volume'' which means all pale tones, and so I  cut extras. Then I auditioned my fave 100 squares.

I wonder what little Palmateer Point Quilt will look like? It's never at all what I imagine, but always a joy.

have a good week!

love

lizzy 

gone to the beach....

Out and About ~ Fabric Sales and Thrifting!

Hello on this April showers dismal day! Despite the weather my girlfriends and I have been venturing out  for some shopping fun. Here we are on Sunday, off to Joann's big April sale. This is the mainland, but you can see the trees are still bare, just the hint of green and the pretty dogwoods in bloom. These north/ south roads are called ''parkways'' and were built in the 1930's, heavily planted to create a beautiful drive in all [well, most] seasons.

Joann's wasn't so glamorous, but I got about 25 spools of neutral cotton threads, two rulers, and 6 yards of brown-on-brown cotton polka dots for the backing of Fall Festival. With sales and coupons it was priced at 3.99 a yard--thanks for the heads up, Mel! Then Monday my friend and fellow thrifter Bea came to visit. Mo was set up with the baby, I mean doggy, sitter and off we went.  Score! Our fav thrift shop was jam packed with treasures as folks declutter and spring clean.

My finds! Some are simply things that please me for 99 cents, some might go into my etsy shop. All the prices were 50% off, plus the rewards card credit, so I did indulge a little.

The mundane: a new with tags ice cube tray, to make ice sticks for sports water bottles. I hope it works.

Pretty and useful, a sweet little clock to keep me on time; for bathroom vanity.

Fun beachy finds, a float for my collection, new from Pier One, but interestingly iridescent. And an unusually heavy small conch or whelk.

Big work basket. Not sure why I bought this. Good for corralling scraps or block pieces?

Dear little Acorn jar, Pffaltzgraff. It'll be so cute next fall when I start my hot tea drinks, filled with natural cane sugar or Stevia or whatever  the food police consider okay to consume six months from now. Or an autumn scented candle?

With this small jar was a collection of squirrel figurines--- some china, wood, even a brass squirrel. Adorable but I don't collect squirrels. Love acorns though, real or imaginary like this one.

I do casually collect these English bone china tiny pots of flowers. I know I should not, they are dust catching tchotckas, but they remind me of my mom and I love them. My mother collected them and hers were ''lost'' / tossed when her house was sold. My dad always bought them for her. I don't know if she actually liked them or she loved them because they were gifts from her husband. Parental mysteries, but I am sentimental sometimes.

 I don't know what the flowers are? The design is marked October, maybe autumn anemones? I thought they were hellebores but  with the October reference?

Usually these are Coalport. This one is not.

 And sweet and so tiny love birds on a seashell with itty bitty blue roses. Made in Japan, perhaps 1950s. Probably it will become a pincushion or thimble catcher.

[below] Tacky! B was aghast. But I love the souvenir Staffordshire, especially if it's from a familiar place, or has good motifs, like this one with the Mayflower, pinecones, and what I thought was the Statue of Liberty.

This is a later Meakin plate. Again bought for the images, ships and NY Harbor. I think the ship Friendship, out of Salem Mass, was an 1800s clipper ship that was also used by the US Navy as a war ship. Notice the bottom lozenge where it is in a battle, and renamed.

Both plates are probably last part of 20th century in age. I almost always will buy a transferware plate with a ship or harbor scene, old or new.
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Then I spent ages in the shirt racks:
Shirts were only 5.99/ 50% off this time so I went ahead and added some lovely pastels for my Random throw I am planning.

Here is one of the inspiration quilts from Pinterest. here



There's a whole Improv  quilts movement, plus ''liberated'' quilting a la Gwen Marston. I can look on YouTube or at the library for books here is one book [if they ever are open and I get a new card]--or I can just be, well, random, and make things up as I go.  I think I 'd rather embrace randomness than improv. Not musical at all, lol. Especially when I sew. Okay maybe Beach Boys or old Tom Petty when I drive on a summer beach night, but that's about all. You don't want to hear me sing along on the way to the icecream stand. (The improv  quilting books seems to relate to musical improvisation. Maybe. Hence my tangent.)

My quilt I made with seashell toile and Japanese indigos, years ago, was a random make do block that I designed before these internet quilt fads began [or I knew of them anyway]. It was easy and simple way to utilize all my scraps of antique indigo.  So I'll see. Anyway, I'm pretty set with shirts for that project and my blue shirting/ cheddar handles Baskets [winter 2018?] quilt.
I always love having a stack of new fabrics on my cutting table, don't you!

PS Has anyone seen or signed up for this sewalong?  Down the Rabbit Hole The quilt looks adorable, I am so tempted. And here is another I am loving now. Chasing Zinnias One or both or neither...? Have a good week. Mo and I will be back Friday with some spring walks/ pics. See ya then.

love

lizzy

gone to the beach...