Craft Rage

In the city about a half hour north of the small town I live in, only losers wait until the weekend to start their sales. Literally 90% of the garage sales start on Thursday, with a few starting on Wednesday afternoon - by Saturday morning, you might as well stay home, because all that's left is old Barney videos, broken toys, and cheap glassware. Of course, by Saturday morning, it's pretty much all free, 'cause everyone's sick of sitting on their lawn with all their worldly goods around them, but crap is still crap, even if it's free. That's a lesson that took me nearly 30 years to learn. If I've actually learned it, that is.

Anyway, yesterday, on the way home from a meeting, I stopped at a garage sale that was just being set up, and I bought a bag of vintage patterns, sight unseen - the bag was stapled shut and just said "Old sewing patterns". I decided it was worth a chance, and the price we negotiated was certainly fair.

Boy, did I score BIG!

They're all really great vintage patterns, from the '40's to the '70's or so, I think. This in itself is great news, but the best part, the very BEST part, is that they're nearly all larger sized patterns. The smallest one is a size 16, with a 34 bust.

Eeeee!

And how about these?

That last one? B3615? Yeah, it's uncut & factory folded! EEEEE!!!!

There are about 10 other patterns here; Honestly, I'm not sure why I'm so excited about these, since I've barely had time to sew anything for the last couple of weeks. Still, I find myself very inspired, and am, this very second, going to go off and work on the last of the adjustments to the Pink Abomination. My goal is to finish it, and get started on the next version - Abomination 2.0, as it were, with a more flared skirt and the new front bodice.

Oh, and by the by, I've also started a new, non-sewing blog, at www.notverycool.com. That way, I can spare you endless stories about my cats and poor driving habits, and my lack of ability to control the sounds that come out of my mouth. Unless you actually want to read about those things, in which case, you can see that stuff over there. Lucky you!

P.S. And for those of you who are fans of Jenny at Chronically Uncool (as I am), please note that I checked with her before starting notverycool, because, well, they're kind of similar names. Thanks Jenny!

Labels: great deals, thanks, vintage patterns

Did I mention my love of garage sales?

I only went to a few this weekend, because I was a little pressed for time, but I made two scores. One, which I haven't taken a picture of yet, is a necklace and earring set which probably contains Real Artificial Rubies, along with a few Real Industrial Grade Diamond Chips, but which is a cheerful bright red, with a few of the little details you normally only see in high-quality jewelery, like security clasps on the earrings and such. Have I ever mentioned that I'm a crow, and I'm unnaturally attracted to shiny things?

Anyway, my ultimate score was this;

It was FREE!!!!! Yes, free. In fact, the lady who gave it to me told me that she'd give me five dollars to get it off her property. I was already sprinting to my car in a very ungainly fashion as the words were coming out of her mouth, though, so obviously I missed out.

Turns out, it's both a lovely, working sewing machine, AND a mystery. When I got it home, I Googled the brand name, Castle, and came up with nothing. Zilch. Zero. Nada. Seriously - until today, I didn't belive that it was possible to acquire an item that doesn't have any information posted about it on the internet, but it appears that my freebie is just such an item.

I'm really curious about it's heritage - it clearly says "Made In Japan",

So it's clearly not a Singer. Question is, what IS it? There's got to be a blog out there that I can get info from; any ideas?

And here's this post's token cat shot;

All this cuteness is going to make me barf. Or buy another cat.

Labels: great deals

I'm not sure if you've heard of Pattern Rescue, but just in case you haven't, I wanted to say a quick word about it. These folks collect and GIVE AWAY sewing patterns, many of which are vintage patterns. FOR FREE! And if you donate a bit of money (like, the cost of postage, or more if you can), or send in patterns you no longer want, you get to select more free patterns as they get posted!

From what I can tell, they started off as a sort of swap site for vintage patterns. That's actually where I picked up these two patterns, which are part of my One Of Everything project;

Also, if you have a vintage pattern with pieces missing, they'll help you locate your missing pieces, or find another person with that same pattern who would be willing to trace your missing piece from their complete pattern!

They do other perfectly nice things as well, so I strongly suggest that if you have a minute, you should check them out at http://www.patternrescue.com/.

You know, recently, on another blog with a large following (y'all know which one), there was a huge kerfuffle between a much-respected sewing blogger and a...well, troll, I guess, for lack of a better word. Essentially, it's this troll's person's belief that there is a vast sewing conspiracy, and that all sewing blogs are maintained by one single minion of those evil fabric corporations. My sewing conspiracy name, by the way, is Kiki Caswell, but my cape is at the cleaners right now, so it's just me and my platform boots posting today.

There were a few pretty pointy digs about the mutual supportiveness of the sewing community at large - essentially, it appears that we're all a bunch of phony, sappy morons; a pack of stupid lemmings. Aye caramba! This actually led me to nearly post a crazy, rambling rant about people who don't like to see other people happy. Thankfully, I refuse to publish angry posts without a day to cool down, so y'all dodged a bullet, there.

If we're all a bunch of sappy, moronic lemmings because we enjoy being kind to one another rather than electing to be nasty and waspish all the time, then I'm a lemming, and I'm okay with that. I'm nasty and waspish enough in my non-sewing life; I'm terribly glad to have e-met you and all the others whose blogs I stalk regularly.

In any case, as far as I'm concerned, Pattern Rescue, the vintage pattern wiki, Pattern Review, and many other great community sites, embody the essence about what's so great about the sewing community. Because I'm so new to the community, I'm sure there are a lot of sites I'm missing? Any suggestions from my readers? Uh...reader, maybe? :)

Labels: great deals, rant

I LOVE GARAGE SALES!!

Okay. I'm one of those people who tries to be careful about throwing the word "love" around. I know, it's weird. Put it on the list of the many things about me that are unexplainable. I tell my family and my fiance, and yes, my cats, that I love them, all the time. I even have a super-duper high-school friend whom I love greatly, and have told her so, without any creepiness. Well, maybe a bit of creepiness, but then we laughed hysterically and went to the thrift store.

There are people (pets count here) I love, and things I love, and I never mix the two up. It's always people first, then things. At least in this, I have my priorities in order. Now if only I could remember that it's groceries first, and THEN fabric, not fabric first, and THEN groceries, I'd be much more popular at home.

Many of the things I love are both mundane and ridiculous - "The Cutting Edge" is a great example of that. I can't explain why I love this movie, I just know that when I wipe out, or see someone else wipe out, the urge to scream "TOEPICK!" is almost crippling. In addition, I love peridots, and The Thomas Crown Affair, and corsets, and containers - oh, how I love things that hold things! Many years ago I took a solo trip to the southern US, and on my last day, I stumbled across The Container Store. I nearly cried when I realized I had no room in my luggage to bring some containers home.

Even above the container fetish, though, is my complete and utter love of people who lay their castoffs out on their lawn, driveway, or garage, for me to paw through. That's why Garage Sale Season is probably my favorite time of the year. As soon as the weather settles, and the last snow is a couple of weeks behind us, everyone in the city I live near cleans out their closets and attics, and lays everything out on their lawn, or in jumbled heaps in their driveway and garage.

They spend the day sitting in their driveway, smiling at strangers, chatting about the weather, joking about whether or not we've really seen the last of the snow, and complaining about the government (that's how we roll in our prairie city).

I enjoy jockeying for a parking spot and getting out of my car, pockets full of change and small bills, and pawing through stuff that people have held on to, sometimes for fifty years or more. I'm not kind - sometimes I laugh right out loud when I see that someone (other than my dad) actually bought a Thighmaster.

I also get a kick out of people who attempt to sell used items at nearly the same price as you would pay for a new one - witness, the woman who had a stack of really dirty old curling irons tagged at $10.00 each. What? You can get a brand new, cootie-free curling iron for $9.99, and I, for one, will not pay extra for clumps of someone elses' hair.

I bought two of my favorite sewing machines this way - a Singer and a White. I paid $10.00 for the Singer and $8.00 for the White, and both of them work like a charm - I recently gave the White to my mom so she could sew heavy tent canvas, and the thing runs like a freight train - the best $8.00 ever, maybe? I bought a large stack (14 in all) of sewing books, including a number of volumes of the Singer Sewing Reference Library, for $3.00.

This weekend, I got everything shown here for $4.75; (click for larger view)

There are a few things I don't even know how to use properly, like the transfer patterns on the top right, and the two yards of drawcord elastic. The clip-on garters I understand, though what I'd clip them to is beyond me - I wonder if there's a market for them on ebay? Some of the zippers in the pile were obviously removed from other garments, but at least 3/4 of them are brand new and unused, or appear that way.

I've been looking for a pattern for a jewelery roll, without much success - my plan is to pick apart the one in the picture, and make my own pattern, once I understand how this one is assembled.

In that same vein, I got this for $4.00;

I've been struggling to make my own crinoline, and I've assembled and disassembled one a number of times, not really sure if what I was doing was correct. Now that I actually have one in my hands, I know! Plus, this one actually fits me, so I have one to wear while I try to make another!

In addition to all that, I occasionally find some really great vintage patterns. Lately, I've come across a number of patterns for little girl dresses, like these;

I don't actually have children, and when I do, it's likely it'll be a boy - my fiance's family has had nothing BUT boys for three generations, and if I remember 11th grade biology, the sex of a baby is decided by the father, but even so, I couldn't resist picking up these patterns. I'm not normally a very acquisitive person, but really, since I started sewing, all bets are off. Plus, when the lady offered me the whole box (there were 16 in total, most of them 50's and 60's dresses and blouses in sizes 10 and 12) for $2.00, I could NOT say no.

Now that I have them at home and have had a chance to stare at them, I want to make the little sailor dress (bottom right) SO MUCH. Maybe I can adapt it to fit one of the cats. I'm never sure - does dressing up your cats count as animal cruelty, or is it just cute? In any case, I'm off to check the newspaper - that's where I'll find out where all the good sales are going to be next weekend! I'll leave you with this;

Hee hee! They're spooning!

Labels: great deals, smooshy