The Adventure of the start of my fabric stash.

A long time ago.

(Have you noticed that I seem to like things that happened a long time ago. Maybe that is because I remember them more, or better... or seem to remember only the good parts. Anyway... Where was I? Oh, yes... A long time ago)

This was during a time when Mr was laid off after working for a company for 28 years. We were having yard sales, going to shows, listing on craig'slist. All to keep off unemployment.

The LORD provided for us then and HE continues to provide for us today, praise Him.

Mr and I were attending a storage auction. It was at a moving company and the storage containers were large wooden boxes, like a small shed. They were probably 6 feet wide, 8 feet long and 8 feet tall. A forklift brought several of them out to be auctioned off.

Another couple that we had met during our times here and there were there also to bid. The lock was cut on the first one and the doors opened. Bidding started. One had furniture, not what we wanted. Another had sundry items. Bidding was brisk and we were not anywhere near the top on any of them. Then the lock was cut on the last one. Inside were stacks and stacks of plastic containers. See through, sorta. And, it was fabric. Lots and lots of fabric.

Most of the other bidders had already spent their wad, or were just not interested. I said to Mr, in my most quiet, out of the side of my mouth voice, "I can sell that fabric".

He says back. "Let's set a limit, not over $100". Done.

Bidding starts. We put in a bid or two and then it was at $100, not our bid. Oh well. The other couple that we knew had it. SOLD for $100.

I overheard the woman say, "Well, all I wanted was the containers. My daughter is moving and we need those". Must have been twenty or twenty-five of them. So, I said, I wanted the fabric. So a deal was struck,
we would pay them half - $50 and they would get their containers and we got the fabric.

Mr backed up our small pick-up that had a canopy over the bed. The couple started unloading the boxes and throwing the contents in through the door of the canopy. More and more boxes were unloaded. Boxes we didn't see from the front. All fabric. I heard the lady mutter, "Well, a deal's a deal". Then a box appeared that did not have fabric. They quickly put it aside to go through later.

There was fabric, cutting mats, specialty rulers, fleece, quilt batting, markers, did I say flannel? Just about everything you could think of in a fabric store. The truck kept getting more and more full. Finally the storage shed was empty. We closed the door of the canopy, thanked the couple and headed home. There was a LOT of fabric there. This was from a serious fabricholic.

At home, I started sorting. Fat quarters of groups of fabric collections. Velvet, plastic table covers, leopard prints, all you could think of right there. I had some containers and they were quickly filled. Bags came out next. They filled up.

I took the fabric to sales and sold it for $1 each piece. Just the other day, I "found" a container that had fleece. It went to a sale. I have made quilt after quilt for family and friends from this find. I have decided that I will never get to the bottom.

Needless to say, we made our money back... and then some.

Only a few of the quilts that were made from the famous fabric find.

Cowboys

Fishing, hunting

Pinks

Fun pinwheels

Blues and pinks

Black and White and Red

Tiny squares

Everywhere I Go

"Everywhere I go, everywhere I go" (Jesus will go with me)... this song has been running through my head as I am going around disinfecting doorknobs, refrigerator handles, stove knobs, phones, etc. Wow! we sure do use a lot of things. The computers were long overdo on cleaning of the keyboards, too. Another song is "Through it all" the phrase, "I've been lot's of places"... Hopefully, this will catch any germs that are lingering.

We are recuperating from the flu. I wouldn't wish it on anyone. I guess when I handle cash I need to wash/sanitize my hands more frequently. Any ideas on how to clean money? beside 'laundering' :-)

To add insult to injury, my mouth has been swelling, fat lips look strange on me... it could be a food allergy that is starting, who knows... ice has helped and I am staying in so that I don't make babies cry and grown men run for cover.

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On another note, I am gathering up various items for our next sale. The knotted rug that I just completed will go and I rolled up the orange fabric into a ball and it looks pretty. An old non-working alarm clock, but it looks so vintage, a little ironstone creamer with delicate orange and brown flowers along the top, etc. Most of what we brought home from our previous sale will do. It seems that we sell only about 1/4th of what we take, but if it is not there at the sale, it will not sell... We always take a trailer full, we just can't help it.

Vintage Newspapers - What to Do... Give Me Some Ideas

In today's world, a newspaper seems like a waste of good trees, doesn't it? Except for the facts that you can hold it in your hands, come back to it when you please, and see a little of history, what is an old newspaper worth? These days we have instant knowledge, I can't tell you how many times I go and 'google' something for information, prices, general knowledge and such. A vintage newspaper captures the day it was written, so what to do with it?

A while back we were gifted with some newspapers. A couple wanted a table, we had to modify one we had and they came from about 50 miles away to pick it up. In the phone conversations before they actually arrived, they said they had some old things and they were looking for a home for them. Among those items were some newspapers. Well, I thought, sure, bring them on.

The newspapers turned out to be bound volumes that were from 70 years old to well over 100...!

They are large, very large, the whole page is bound.

The oldest of the volumes is from 1869. I wasn't even a thought in my parents head then...

I love the old ads, imagine using an upper set of dentures to advertise!

Hats and caps. "New styles received every steamer". Those came by steamer boat from San Francisco, up the Sacramento River.

Gentlemen's Clothing

How about a lost horse? Reward offered if you see him. I think $20 was quite a bit then.

Then, we move into the 20th century and the war year of 1944.

Shoes - non-rationed for only $2.79!

Fashions

News from the war front.

And political cartoons.

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Well, any ideas of how to sell these?

I have 10 different years with one duplicate.

A local University Library has copies of these in their Special Collection Section.

I have emailed them and have not received a reply. Maybe because I said I wanted to sell them...

I am looking for ideas (beyond donating them ;-)

Put your thinking caps on and give me your best.

A New Life for a Table, or Two

Once upon a time there was a school kitchen. 

One that actually cooked food for children.

Not the new fangled idea that you order in and then heat it up.

This table was part of that kitchen.

Only, it didn't look like this then.

(see the sold tag on the corner?)

A busy, busy day

We are readying ourselves for a sale in Downtown Sacramento tomorrow. We do this show/sale once a month on the second Sunday.

My preparations includes last minute yard sale shopping. There have been many times we have found a treasure while out yard sale shopping and then took it to a sale the next day and profited from it.

We are also rearranging our cargo trailer. We need to pack it up so that when we hit those inevitable bumps that  our items will stay in place and not fall down on something else, etc. And, because we always find something we think we need to take last minute, a lot of times I need to unpack what we already packed and repack (wow, that makes you tired just reading it)

We recovered an outdoor settee with some denim fabric to give it a fresh look. I got a duvet cover out of denim and it was just waiting for the right time. Mr wanted the scraps for rags, but I voted him down because I see some quilt squares from a pattern I just saw in a magazine. He graciously let me have them.

I am making our lunch today for tomorrow. Fresh vegetables and fruits, sandwiches, a salad or two, oatmeal packets (for the convenience), setting the coffee on the timer for an early wake-up (2am), and making sure my change is in the truck. Plenty of water, tea, etc. We are setting up and selling in our space for about 12 hours, so it makes for a long day along with my body thinks that it is noon when it is really only 8am.

I am also going to make a dessert and perhaps a salad for the Bible study evening we will attend after we return tomorrow afternoon.

All this and I need to get into my bed by around 8:30 to get a few hours of sleep before that alarm goes off. It is not even dark in the summer at that time!

Next week, we will be at a show in nearby Roseville. It was highlighted in a magazine for one of the best shows to attend.

http://theoliveandrose.blogspot.com/2012/04/huge-congrats-to-mes-amis-vendors.html

This blog author is the sponsor/promoter of the show. It has been running for several years and we have a good time. I do the same preparations for this upcoming show as I do now.

In other news... I have been working off and on, mostly off because I am making this up as I go along, on this project. I think I am finished.
Here is it = a jewelry bouquet. I have it sitting in a crystal vase with the wrapped handle down inside it to keep it upright.

It has been a work in progress. I saw one of these, but much, much larger at a shop. Then I went on etsy and I was astounded at the prices they were asking. If you know me, you know that I deal in vintage jewelry and I had many pieces that would just not work for resale. Here is a way that I thought I may be able to utilize them.

Here is it laying down on a silver platter that I picked up. Mr likes it upright, I may take both to see how well of a reception it will get. It is smaller than the ones I saw and hopefully that will be a selling point, because when you get a lot of jewelry on these, they are very heavy.

I have another one sitting, staring at me to do something else with it. It will be gold toned with white ribbon and "pearls". It is not something that I would use, (not planning on marrying again after 40 years with my husband), but there seems to be a market for these. We will see.

What Came First, The Chicken or the Egg?

A real puzzler, huh?

This is my find from a sale last weekend. During the winter, sales are few and far between. It had also been raining, so if there were any sales, they were inside the garage. I know, a garage sale should be in a garage, but most of the time, they are held in front of the garage, spilling over onto the lawn and sidewalk, and down the driveway if you are in the country.

Back to the find of the day.

These birds of a feather were all in a box at one sale. They hadn't even seen the light of day yet.

I started to ask about one and then decided to ask for the whole box. You know, no need to unpack, I'll save you some work, etc. Well, the whole box for $10.

There are a couple art glass style, and one that has feathers, but I am pretty sure he/she was never alive.

Several are wooden, a few ceramic and one that is like a primitive doll. Two more are pewter.

All in all, they count over 20.

We will be going to a show or two here coming up and I want to display them as a group in a wooden box. After all, they deserve to keep themselves company. 

And, somebody collects chickens...

Ramblings about Hankies

When I was a child, long, long ago. It was common to receive a pretty hankie in an envelope along with a card. Being raised sorta on 'the other side of the tracks' (meaning that I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth), I thought, what in the world was I supposed to do with this? Not actually wipe my nose... It was too pretty and it would lose it's starchy stiffness, and besides, it scratched. As a kid, my sleeve was just too handy. On special days - like 'hot lunch' day at school, my mother always put my quarter in the corner of a hankie, tied it up and then pinned it to the inside of my pocket. I must have not been too trust-worthy...

Now, in contrast, or whatever, my aunts always carried about -- disclaimer if you are faint...are you prepared for this?  a "snot rag". They were small fabric squares, just the size of a hankie, and they had a stack of them in their laundry closet! I remember folding them as they were often laundered...hmm, they would be over 100 years old now (my aunts, not the hankies) ... now, I want to make it clear that they had proper hankies when they went out in polite society.

yuk!

My grandmother had a 'hankie' tucked into her sleeve. But, these were days when a trip to the store meant you wore a hat, you dressed up to 'run to the bank'. (Do you remember when there were 'banking hours'?) Men wore a hat and 'doffed' it at lady's presence. And they always carried not one, but two hankies, one to use and one to give to a needy young lady or spread on a bench for them to sit on. Oh, the days, no jeans and T-shirts then.

How about the crime being solved because of the monogram in the corner of the hankie that was left at the scene of the crime?

I think that hankies were part of the 'well-dressed' young lady's wardrobe.

Now, we have advanced - we use disposable tissues. I'm sure they cut back on passing along colds, coughs and viruses. But, they are certainly not as pretty. Can you imagine a young man retrieving a dropped 'kleenex'? Or, saving it in his "handkerchief drawer" to remind him of his lost love?
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Well, along my finds, I got a whole lot of hankies. I gave them a good soak in a fabric bleach for a day or so and then laundered them. I am now in the process of ironing them pretty. I have ironed 21 now and I am about half done. They have turned out really nice and I hope to sell them, if I can just come up with an idea of how to market them in a society that doesn't use hankies.

I Have This Love Affair Going

My love affair isn't with someone other than my husband. He is the love of my life and I can't imagine life without him. This is different.

It is with bowls.

Colored pottery bowls. Although I would not turn down glass bowls either. But these 'speak' to me. Just a minute, I have to get rid of the people at the front door from the insane asylum.

It is very, very hard for me to pass them up in sales, thrift stores, etc. And, much harder for me to sell them in my space or at shows.

I love them big and I love them small. And, I have more that I didn't show...

I love the durability, the stories they can tell of the meals they helped to prepare for large and small families, the craftsmanship in their making.

They make my heart sing. I know, crazy...

I think maybe this is too much obsession with an object...But, there isn't one or all of them I wouldn't part with if it meant less heartache for one of my family. If it could take away the pain for a little while... I would throw them out if it could heal rifts that should not be.

Do you have objects or things that 'speak' to you?

I do, another day I will share my pitchers, and creamers.

Marathon Month

October 2 was the start of a marathon month of shows.

Well, actually 4 this month. We did the Alameda show last Sunday and this Friday we will travel to the Roses and Rust Vintage Home and Garden Market, in Anderson, California, leave there Saturday evening and come on down nearer home to the Sacramento Antique Faire for Sunday. On the 22nd we will again travel a little north and do a show in Willows called "Gathering Better Junque". This link doesn't really tell you about the show, but rather the wonderful ladies that sponsor it and they do an incredible job at that.

For quite a while we have been gathering special items for these shows. For this weekend, we will be featuring "I wanna be a cowboy" theme. I have tin dishes, cowboy hats, boots, bandanas, deer horns, horseshoes, and old cast-iron griddle, etc. I wish I had taken a picture (vingette?) of it before it got packed into our cargo trailer. We also have another theme we have been working on: children's things. We have a small oak table with two chairs, a child's rocking chair, two dolls, a cradle, complete with the padded mattress and quilt, Winne the pooh clock and other "stuff". Sometimes in our gathering of things we just seem to run across items that go together. We have been saving them for a theme and we will see how this all works out.

Last Sunday we took many similar items to Alameda, here is a taste. And where, oh where, did my "watermarks" go? hmm
Okay, looking into the space, and traveling left side around the back to the front - does that even make sense?

a metal hutch top from a parts store on a metal topped bottom, with casters

Locking red nightstand on a small desk with a chair

A variety of nightstands, they seem to be the "butter on the bread" for us

A queen size quilt that I made - yes, it is the "block of the month" one. They are not my colors, but perhaps someone else will enjoy it.

A hutch/bookcase with glass doors

This is a 3 piece set, chest, mounted mirror on the chest and a small bedside table

A red island, work station that got so much attention (and sold)

A vintage grey rocking chair on a stained wood farm table and under that is a coffee table with stained parque wood top and shelf. There are vaious small benches and plant tables also here. The table and coffee table sold to a couple that are opening up a gathering/business place on Filmore Street in San Francisco and they wanted the dark stained wood furniture to decorate it with.

Here are two hutches, one with a metal top and the other wood. The all wood one sold.

I have some ironstone dishes and silverware in the basket on this red farm table with red legs. Under the table you get a peek of bed springs that were rather popular. Yes, bed springs! Decorators use them for candle holders, funny vases, grouped in threes - who would of thought? old rusty bed springs!

It is hard to describe the beautiful day that accompied our sale that day. Lovely clouds, the skyline of a huge city in the backdrop and temperatures that would leave those in those hot states drooling.

It is getting ready to rain, so we have packed all we can into the trailer and we are pretty much ready to hit the road on Friday. It will be around 3 hours up to Anderson, a quaint town with a rural feel. In the spring when we went there, we really enjoyed the laid back attitude and the friendliness of the shoppers, for a reminder of our time see here. It will be a different venue (or place that they are having the sale), but I am confident that we will have a good time, even if we don't make tons of sales.

Marketing Questions ? ? ?

Do you have a favorite way to market your items?

I have been loosing sleep trying to figure out new ways to market some of my items. One I am going to try is this:

It is a silverplate place setting of all the same vintage pattern tied together. Would you pay $8 for that? I don't know if my prices are too high. I want to put a place setting on an ironstone plate on one of Mr's Farm Style Tables. What do you think? (place setting of knife, fork, spoon, soup spoon)

I love the older vintage silverplate patterns. Some date back to the early 1900's --- that is more than a lifetime for some of us.

The older patterns are so pretty. This one is "Gardenia", 1941 by Rogers & Sons.

 

So, what do you think? Any suggestions? I am open...

Friday Finds

Here are just a few of the finds we got this morning.

Mr got a whole lot more that I didn't take any pictures of - like wood shelving, a buffet cabinet (free!) an old metal bed spring (you take the springs out and sell them separately - I have no clue what they do with those!) a metal cabinet with a Formica top that will get a new wood top. Just some basic starter supplies to make some fantastic items with. When you get the supplies for little or nothing, that just makes it greater.

I got this:

Among the items are two colored pottery bowls that I am thrilled with (I have this weakness for bowls and pitchers, if you haven't noticed) some cobalt blue glassware (a tidbit server and a pedestal dish) a covered casserole in a metal server, some ironstone, carnival glass, a unique nutmeg grater (front center) and a number of pieces of mottled grey enamelware. There is also a jar of old marbles a metal box, a strainer and a tin that says "Lipton Tea".

Most of this came from one barn sale and it was so dirty it needed a bath before I set it anywhere in the house. Not a bad haul. Now the hard part - pricing, I don't like to price, it takes time and thought.

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Elsewhere

I came out of the house the other morning and found this

It is all that is left of "Pretty Bird"

True to form, I thought. We never seem to have a pet very long before they either run away (from boredom I wonder) or they get killed.

You can read about him here

Since it has been such nice weather, and he is cooped up inside of the house most of the time, I put his cage outside on a table where he can see us working, here the other birds, etc. Since it was also warm inside without the swamp cooler going, I left him outside overnight (I've done this before...)

Well, something (perhaps a raccoon) had scoped out this convenient place to have dinner and decided that this was the evening to go out to eat. The cage had obviously been pushed off of the table (and it was a large cage, so it must have been a big raccoon). There were a few more feathers here and there, but I am sure that Pretty Bird is now singing with the angles.

Who knows what animal we will next torture... Stay tuned.

Oh, did I tell you that we now have a cat?

Ironstone Heaven

Recently, we hit a jackpot at a yard sale

The first day we went I was selective and got most of these:

some of these large and I mean 15 inches high, were to a bowl and pitcher set at one time. The other large one is an unusual vase, thing $$ when you see these and they are not quite as ugly... I mean, how many of you want these to docorate with?

Most of these dishes were from my first visit to this yard sale. I cleaned them up, they were rather dirty, fly speckled and real dusty, dirty. The set of square bowls I thought were kinda unusual. My daughter (the vintage bricoleur) drooled over many of these. And, another bricoleur, when she saw the pictues, said "I want to buy that one" (she collects ironstone)

Well, since I had such a great review, I decided to go back the next day and here is what I got

I'm sorry, you just have to put up with my photographic skills or lack there of. There are multiple shots of the same dishes here.

I took some of the dishes and arranged them in one of Mr's creations, a hutch

I would say that most of these are transferware, brown. The large brown pitcher is held together at the pouring spout with scotch tape, but it still looks good on a shelf. I passed up the covered casseroles the first day, but snatched them up the second day. I don't know why any other dealer didn't find these before me...

I look for ironstone marks on the dishes like these

One of the bricoleurs says she will help me with the pricing. That is the hardest part for me. I want to sell them and not have them as museum pieces in my store.

One last piece was this bowl -- it is Metlox and the Rooster is a trademark to look for.

All, in all I spent around $100 for all of these. That is more than I would normally spend, but I know that the value is here.

Well, keep your eyes peeled, you may run acorss a find like this sometime.