Rayen

I'm taking off today to see if I can finish a quilt (more details about it in upcoming posts), so see you tomorrow.

My guy and I went on another little road trip last month to check out a farmer's market about an hour from our house. It was fabulous, and I ended up buying a week's worth of fresh veggies for $14.00. The same stuff would have cost me $50.00 at the market. We will definitely be going there again. After the farmer's market it was cool enough to go wander around the town a bit, and we found a three-story antique shop with the most unusual items. I couldn't resist picking up this adorable vintage set of embroidered potholders. It's probably from the forties or fifties, and was made from a stamped muslin panel, likely by Vogart.

I stopped reading Stephen King some years back because my tolerance for dark, violent horror novels decreased dramatically with age. He's probably the best male American writer alive, and he definitely inspires most writers to do better with their stories; I am one of those. I've just always wished he'd do something else besides horror. Well, there was that one book on writing, but that was really an autobiography dressed up as writing advice. Anyway, I have a family member who does like this author very much, so when his You Like it Darker came out, I invested in a copy as a gift. I didn't intend to read it myself, just like a dieting person doesn't intend to eat a Twinkie they purchase for a friend who never shows up to claim it. It was just sitting there, I can say, for weeks, and it is Stephen King . . . . The book is a collection of never-before-published short stories, and they're much different from those I read in Night Shift forty-odd years

These are the vintage fabrics I've chosen to use for the art quilt I'm making from one pound of fabric scraps chosen by someone else. For the one fabric I could add I decided on this vintage ruffled pillow case from my estate sale sewing room lot, as it seemed to fit in with the other fabrics best. I eliminated these two fabrics from the one pound, as the 70's child novelty print doesn't fit color-wise, and the rare piece of sacking, a fabric I love but can never find anywhere, I've already reserved for another project. Picking apart the pillow case gave me a lot of fabric to work with, so it was a good choice to add. Stay tuned to see what I make. :)

I'm actually writing this post in early June so I can check in with myself on my summer projects, like my thrifted romance reading challenge. So far I've read: a few pages of the first one. I know, I've been busy, but I need to out more effort into this challenge. The first book is not great so I need to set it aside and pick up the next one. My make a quilt out of one pound of fabrics chosen by someone else (how about we call it the one pound challenge from here on out?) is at the design point; I'll show you the fabric selection tomorrow. Finally, my annual summer art quilt project -- this lovely sea-themed tote -- is at this stage of completion: Finished!

I thrifted this pretty, new with tags pale green top to wear for a family get together; it's my favorite shade of green and will go nicely with my white jeans (I can still wear them before Labor Day, yes?) The retail on this one was $30.00 at Kohl's; I got it for $9.99. You remember my yarn stash, yes? Well, I decided to go through it and weed out the fine pastel baby yarn, as I have no more babies to crochet things for now. I also don't care much for most boucle acrylic, so I added that to the Goodwill donation box. Then I resorted and organized what was left. That allowed me to go from six bins to four, which feels pretty good.

I decided to watch School Spirits on Netflix because I was a little bored with Asian dramas, and managed to get through all eight episodes without giving up, although sometimes I was tempted. This is a somewhat odd high school drama with some merits: none of the actors are famous or especially attractive, the premise is not the usual high school nonsense, and the story does move along at an okay pace. The series follows the sad tale of Maddie Nears, a teenage spirit who wakes up at her high school to discover she's disappeared in real life. She meets other ghosts who assure her that she's dead, and was probably murdered, although no one has found her body yet. The already dead spirits (which includes one earnest teacher who is trying to get everyone to accept their death and cross over) help Maddie investigate her murder. She's hindered by the fact that she can't leave the school premises and has too many suspects. A bonus turns out to be Maddie's best fri

I wanted to do another art quilt with fabrics chosen by someone else, so I bought a one-pound asssortment from Ramen Hands , a new-to-me seller on Etsy. The order just arrived and blew me away, especially one piece of sacking. The latter is a fabric I like to use as background/foundation fabric for my art quilts, and it's a huge piece in perfect condition. I look for that all the time and can never find it. I was also intrigued by the seller's Estate Sale in a Box listing, which offered different "rooms" you could choose. I ordered the craft room, which sounded like my kind of thing, and came in a pretty bag. This was such an awesome surprise: the bag was overflowing with vintage fabrics, patterns, trims, lace, beads, sheet music, decorative papers, stamps, old photos and more. The most beautiful piece was this antique faux pearl and rhinestone neck collar; it's like a mini waterfall of sparkle. It really felt like I'd sent a personal sho

While cleaning out our master bedroom closet I discovered I don't own a dress to wear for special occasions (all of my old dresses were too big for me, so I donated them long ago). I'm not a dress person, actually, but since we're socializing more these days I thought I should invest in at least one. Found this one, which looked pretty and was new with tags, so I put in the minimum bid and won it with no challengers. The dress arrived in beautiful condition; I know it was never worn. There was still protective plastic on the belt buckle. The tags say it sold for $74.00. I paid $9.99. Savings: $64.01. Image credit: the first photo in this post came from the item auction listing at ShopGoodwill.com

My guy and I are taking time each week to walk around the downtown areas of places we've never had time before to visit, which is how I came across a lovely fiber art supplies shop wth amazing handspun art yarns and hand-dyed embroidery threads from local artists. Fine silk embroidery thread is literally impossible to find in my part of the country, but not anymore. I also loved the amazing selection of hand-dyed flosses. I even found some tiny seed beads for my current project, and a gift for a quilter friend. While I try to thrift as much as I can for my art quilting and embroidery these days, I love the chance to support our my local weavers and dexters.

I have been in a reading-for-pleasure slump, mostly because of the spring cleaning but also because I never know what I want to read. I blazed through those two new books I just bought as well, so I'm back to square one. To cure this malady I thrifted a box of vintage Harlequin romances for the minimum bid. They arrived in remarkable condition, looking as new as they did when they were published. I know people turn their nose up at these type novels, but I enjoy them a lot. They're usually well-written, have an interesting storyline and aren't too graphic (I have nothing against graphic romances, btw; they're just not what I read for pleasure.) A lot of talented, prolific romance authors like Anne Stuart got their start writing for publishers like Harlequin. I'm hoping to read all 25 books this summer, starting with this one. I'll post about the best books in the lot, and then do a big wrap-up of all of them once I finish the pile. As for wha

I thrifted a nice pile of quilting and sewing magazines last month for the minimum bid, including a vintage issue of Burda with all the pattern pieces intact. For those of you who don't make clothes, Burda is a fashion sewing magazine published all over the world and runs about $15.00 per issue last time I checked. There was also a quilting pattern for a pretty wall hanging and a bunch of applique patterns that probably came from other quilting mags. I don't know if I'll ever really get into applique, but I'll hang onto the patterns just in case. The magazines are all in pristine condition, so I'd price them at $3.00 resale, or $45.00 (the vintage Burda issue could be worth a lot more than that, but we'll just price it the same as the others.) The pattern and applique templates altogether are worth plenty, too, but we'll add them on for $10.00. Total value would be $55.00; I paid $9.99 for the lot. Savings: $45.01.

My guy and I made the trek to Old Town in Kissimmee for a specialty car show, which only turned out to be two cars (does more than one constitute a show?) So instead we walked around the amusement park and tourist trappy shops there to stretch our legs. The place was empty, and seeing the park without people gave me a couple of story ideas, so there was a benefit. On the way home the sunset turned spectacular, adding to my story ideas. Maybe I'll write one of them this summer.

The drama Will Love in Spring is probably the most modern romance series I've seen from China (Lighter & Princess might make a tie), and with the exception of a problem with one character I enjoyed it a lot. I never once sensed I was being lectured or fed the usual government nonsense, but instead became immersed in a very emotional tangle of relationships, obligations and dreams. Considering how Chinese dramas are almost always super contrived and filled with propaganda, that was quite refreshing. Funeral director Chen Mai Dong (Li Xian) has a long history in the small town of Nanping, where he ended up living with his grandparents after his parents' divorce. In high school he was a brawler, and there ran into newly-transferred Zhuang Jie (Zhou Yu Tong) a girl who had lost part of her leg in a car accident that killed her father. After some minor clashing these two misfits bond, and that admittedly uneasy friendship sets the stage for the current relationship to

To save money (or for other reasons) I'm trying to recreate dinners we've always liked at restaurants, which I found I can make much cheaper. Here's an example from last month: my guy grilled a steak for him, and I made salmon in the air fryer for myself, with a baked potato, a loaf of french bread with an olive oil herb dip, and a wedge salad for both of us. Breaking down the cost: I shopped around until I found four ribeye steaks for $23.00 at Winn Dixie (which has consistently been the cheapest place for steak.) The entire loaf of bread was $1.00 at Wal-Mart, and it is surprisingly quite good if you can get it the minute they put it out on the racks in the bakery (that's also cheaper than even I can make it.) The oil/herb dip was made from a 10-serving packet, and cost about fifty cents per portion. The wedge salad came from leftover iceberg lettuce I got for $3.00 and used for two other meals. We grew the radishes. The potatoes were from a five-pound bag f

Last month when we were out in the garden I went hunting for watermelon. The vines grow so thick that the melons actually play hide and seek with us. :) My guy didn't think we had anything bigger than a marble at that point, but I knew better and found this baseball-sized melon. Then I found a second melon even bigger than the first. Watermelon are very easy to grow here, but they will take over an entire garden (and a yard, for that matter) if you're not vigilant and control the vines. Finally I found a third, which was the biggest of all. Since I'm six weeks ahead on the blog by the time this post these delicious treasures will be ready to harvest. :)* *Update: Unfortunately all of our first crop of watermelon burst, probably due to excessive rain. We're now working on the second crop, which are the size of marbles as of today.

I have so much arugula in the garden we're going to be eating salads for the next month. This plant grows wonderfully here, and the bugs don't touch it. Our cucumbers got off to a slow start thanks to the cold spring we've had, but they're finally producing too. We also have corn again, and we're hand-pollinating it in hopes to improve the yield. No bets on whether or not it will work, but we're keeping our fingers crossed.

Last month when we wanted some corn with dinner we paid another visit to our local farmer's market. Everytime we go it seems like they're moving truckloads of cucumbers. I was happy to see more people shopping there during the week, too, but it did make it impossible to take pics. Suffice to say there was plenty of sweet corn, watermelons and other produce for sale at prices much cheaper than the market. My little haul. :)