a single sheet

a little while ago, ok two years ago,

i purchased a fat quarter set of vintage sheets.

 i wanted to make a quilt. something simple, light weight and good for spring and summer. maybe a quilt to be used on a picnic or just spread on the grass to look at the stars.

fast forward to two garage sale-ing weekends ago

when i found this twin flat sheet. i'm not sure what it is about linens and me, but whenever i go to a garage sale i am always drawn to them. i found this single solitary sheet and thought well you can never have two many sheets. right? i mean sheets, especially flat sheets can be handy for soooo many things. they can be used to make quick tents, or the walls for forts. they can be used to make a fun and funky skirt, a light and breezy nightie or pajama bottoms. see there are so many uses for sheets.  have i rationalized my crazy preoccupation with sheets yet? (crickets chirping) moving right along.....

i brought home this solitary sheet and put it with it's other brethren in the already packed linen closet. then on sunday i suddenly had an urge to get out the vintage sheet fat quarter set. as soon as i saw them i thought of that sheet, low and behold, a perfect pairing. the colors are great together. 

 i realize my photography skills are somewhat lacking. (crickets chirping) again. ok they're horrible. but you get the idea of these fabrics compatibility.

you might notice that i added a plain ivory fabric, it's the one at the bottom. i used an vintage pillow case and cut it up to match the size blocks i am going to use. i am going to do some vintage embroidery designs on these ivory pieces of fabric. 

 i've picked out these three designs.

and this will be the floss palette. 

all in all not a bad project inspiration from one single bed sheet.

Cheers!

what a saturday

you would think that all saurdays would be lovely wouldn't you? but not all saturdays are created equal. some have you running from the moment your feet hit the floor. other saturdays have you or some other family member with a case of the grumpy bumps or some other ill attitude. then there are saturdays where you find nothing comes together and you wish that you never left the warm confines of your soft bed. but then, then there are saturdays like today.

I woke up remembering that my dh wanted to check to see if a book was still available at a garage sale that we had visited yesterday. i got up, took a shower,

 put on my shirt, that i had finally finished, and my handy, dandy, trusty levi's and went downstairs. i had to remind dh about the book, but once he remembered, he was up and at 'em and we were out the door. we made it back to the sale we had been to the previous day. unfortunately, for us, the book we were wondering about had already been purchased. but we did find a few treasures to bring home. feeling daring and curious we drove by the sign corner. do you all have one of these in your small town? an unofficial street corner that everyone and anyone having a garage sale posts their signs. luckily for us, we do. as i was saying, we drove by the sign corner and saw a couple of new garage sales for the day. off we went. we found one sale outside a church, always a good sign. it wasn't the whole church having the sale just some of the ladies. i was able to find an air bake cookie sheet,

 this fun sign, and an old picture. after we left that sale we noticed signs pointing the way to another sale that would take us quite off the beaten path. now i'm not sure about you and how you feel about garage sales out in the booneys but around here i have discovered that more times than not they lead to disappointment. either the items for sale are;

a. so highly price

b. beyond repair

 or

c. unidentifiable.

but throwing caution to the wind we let the signs guide us. we came upon a road that forked with a final sign that informed us that there were actually two sales. we looked at the one closest to us and thought it looked more like heavy tools. because we were dealing with limited funds, translate to $6.00, and no place to put large heavy tools, we decided to try the other path. it took us to a smallish sale. at first i thought that my hypothesis would be proven true. i did find some shirts for dh , but they were a bit high.

i picked this one up anyways since it is silk and was in beautiful shape. we perused around a bit and then dh noticed a cuisinart ice cream/frozen yogurt maker in a cheerful red color. it look brand new and i didn't think the $20 price tag was asking too much. but as i stated earlier we didn't have that. but all of a sudden i and spotted a vintage stand mixer sitting right next to the cuisinart. woo hoo! i have been wanting a stand mixer. of course i would love a kitchenaide robin's egg blue stand mixer, but the price is too far out of reach for our frugal budget.  me being the vintagey gal that i am thought a vintage stand mixer would fit the bill instead and fit in our small kitchen. this mixer was a mere $5, with the original glass bowl, bread hook and the mixey things ( yeah i know try and keep up with all my technical terminology). unfortunately since we only had $6 and dh's shirt was priced at $3, i wasn't quite sure how i was going to pull this off. of course asking the lady if she would bargain was an option, and one i always practice. but then my dh came to the rescue by remembering he had a $1 in his pocket. (between you and me i think he was holding out on me, but when he saw how i was beginning to suffer at the thought of leaving the mixer behind he decided he would kick in and put me out of my misery.) we approached the lady and we offered our collective grand $7 and she took it. i was thrilled!

so now this sweet machine sits in our kitchen. it assisted me in making the chocolate chip cookies ( i use this recipe) you see in the pic and worked like a dream.

i hope your saturday was one of the good ones. i know mine was.

Cheers!

throughly discouraged

wow! what a day. i'll tell ya (why yes i will)

we have a van that we have had in storage for about a year. the reason? it would suddenly decide that it would be on a break when we would be out and about. there we would be running errands, grocery shopping or what not. we would park the van, take care of business, get back in the van and.....nothing. now one might think oh it was the alternator or the starter. nope had both tested and they were fine. some one might think it would be the battery. well at the time it seemed fine. my mum was very generous to allow us to use her reliable vehicle, the gem. so we placed the fussy van in storage.

last week the engine light in my mum's gem came on. it didn't sound any different or drive any different, but we all were concerned. so today my mum took the gem to the garage to see what they would say. at first examination they said it was just the o2 sensor. ummm ok? then they decided to look closer. well of course they did. and they came back with a laundry list of things that have to be done to the little gem. my poor mum was quietly have heart palpitations while she was at the garage and when she called me i started to have fits of apoplexy. actually i just became really snippy. which, as we all know, is just so not helpful (blush). after she left the garage and came over we all sat down and discussed that we would bring the fussy van out of storage and put the gem in until we could slowly work on getting the laundry list taken care of, bit by bit. of course since fussy van had been sitting in storage so long, we had to get the tabs renewed, something we had been remiss in doing, and get a new battery. for my husband had discovered the the battery that had been in the van was well past it's prime, by this time. of course all of this meant that our monthly grocery shopping excursion to town would totally have to be called off. we just didn't feel confident driving in to town and being stuck. so it meant that we would have to pay higher prices and less selection for the months food supply at the local market. (sigh)

now why would this necessarily make me discouraged? because i think i actually found a pair of boots that i like. but the budget this month is well on it's way to being spent. (sigh) and i really just can't justify spending some $51 on a pair of boots. i might spend a wee bit of change on a pair of new tights, but that would be considerable less than the boots.

maybe the benevolent vintage re-use/re-purpose/re-cycle gods (yes there are such gods. please don't try and convince me otherwise. at least not now and definitely not today) will allow me to find a pair at a garage sale for a song. keep your fingers crossed.

cheers! (even though i don't feel like it right now)