Rayen

For the May edition of my calendar tote project I decided to use a vintage embroidered crazy quilt patch I've been saving for a while. I'd like to do a theme of vintage embroidery with a black tote. Ordinary I avoid black, as it tends to be depressing, but this time it feels right. I did test the patch against a cream colored cutter quilt piece and while it does bring out the bird a little better I prefer how it looks with the black. I also got out my basket of vintage crazy quilt pieces to hunt through and see if there are some smaller bits of embroidery work I can incorporate. All of these came to me as cutter pieces, which kind of breaks my heart, but crazy quilts are well known to disintegrate, especially because of the types of dyes and the thin silks used during this era, so I feel lucky to have them anyway. The granny square I crocheted in Gumdrop silk yarn last month doesn't quite work with my idea. Neither do these blocks. These defi...

This is one of my favorite purses, whichj developed a big shreddy hole in the back side from (I assume) rubbing against things as I've used it. It's a Vera Bradley I thrifted in a huge lot last year , so I paid only about $1.47 for it. I also certainly have enough purses to just get another from my Vera stash and use it, which I did. I really like this purse, though, so I decided to repair it, launder it and use it again. Since I didn't have any scraps that match the fabric of the purse, I went with a white dotted dark blue patch that goes fine with the floral print. I pinned down the patch in a rectangle and sewed it over the hole, reinforcing the edges with a blind stitch to give it extra strength. Here's the finished mend. Holes and fraying are common problems with vintage Vera Bradley products, as the fabric and thread used to make them is extremely thin and cheap. This purse was in new condition when I began using it back seven months ago. ...

My guy and I saw this local fisherman when we went on a hike by one of the local lakes last week. If you'd like to see what else we did, check out my album of pics here .

On the thrifting front I'm doing a little at the online auction. I have an urge to paint again (I don't know why; I'm terrible at it), but all the art supplies I had are either dried up or too old to use, so I put in a bid on this lot of supplies. There are actually 20 journals in this lot, which I plan to make covers for, embellish and then give as gifts. This little quilt has the most charming primitive applique work I've seen in a while, and I'd love to add it to my collection. Stay tuned to the blog to see if I win any or all of these.

Last week the first of the corn crop arrived at the local farm where we shop for veggies, so we made a trip to buy a bag. Although we can get corn cheaper at the supermarket, this is one of the times when we don't worry about the expense. The first trip to the farm for corn is kind of the unofficial start to spring for me. We'll be making trips out every few weeks to shop at the farm now until they close for the summer. Why don't we buy our veggies where we can get them cheaper? Supporting our local farmers is more important to us than saving money. I didn't take a photo, but we bought a bag with a half-dozen ears of corn and a big basket of baby cucumbers. It was ten dollars. I shared half of the cucumbers with our neighbor, who has her son and his family visiting them. There isn't much we can do about the economy, or stopping corporations from destroying family businesses like the farm. All we can do is show our support by spending our money whe...

While I was on my break my guy and I went to the Sunday farmer's market in Clermont, and stumbled upon a small car show in a parking lot there. This 1967 Impala was identical to mine back in the day. My first car was an ambulance in the military; this one was my second when I got home. Mom owned it and gave it to me. Imagine parallel parking this boat. There were a lot of people there so I couldn't get many pics, but it was fun. We love to look at cars. This Jag was my dream car when I was a teenager (it's even the same green color as the one I lusted after.) The wood dash nearly made me swoon. I knew I'd never get one (and I was right) but it was okay to dream. I went after and got the biggest dream of my life in 1998, so that made up for all the Jags I didn't get. :)