Showing posts with label treasures. Show all posts
Showing posts with label treasures. Show all posts

Sunday, January 30, 2011

Just checking in.

Sometimes I let my perfectionism get the better of me.  (Stop laughing, all of you.  I can so be perfectionistic! Mostly in my head, though.)  I put off posting because I haven't had a chance to upload my pictures, or because I have some misguided feeling that I should feed/bathe/entertain the spawn, or because I just don't have anything very exciting to write about.  James Joyce said it better than I ever could:
No pen, no ink, no table, no room, no time, no quiet, no inclination. 
 
 Sometimes I find myself lacking in one (or all) of those departments, and often I just can't get it together.  Like today.  The morning passed in the typical flurry of carpools, laundry and dishes.  The afternoon, heaven help me, was all about house hunting.  (And a leak in the furnace, and a birthday party that somehow escaped the calendar...)
But I wanted to tell you about the earrings I made in the wee smalls, after I finally lulled the littlest to sleep.  And about the fascinating new game that Chevi's worked out:  "Mommy, would you rather I was a hunchback, or a dog?"  "Would it be better to drown or get hit by a car?"  (I'm reserving a spot with a good therapist tomorrow.  For both of us.)  And about the thrift shop I've been frequenting, and the little treasures I've unearthed there.


Wednesday, October 20, 2010

My Creative Space: Oops! I did it again.

My name is Wendy, and I have a vintage sewing machine problem.  I have 4 of them, now.  At the beginning, I told myself I'd only do it once.  Just one 1950's Singer to call my own, to sew the odd seam, should the need arise.  It was mine for a song, and I got shivery every time I opened its mint-green case.
Then we moved, and I was living in a rental with the kiddos while the hubs and most of our stuff were across the country in our old house.  And there was this thrift shop, see, and---well, it was only thirty bucks!  And last year, we were at a yard sale, and I found this great little table.  And I got it for five bucks!  And when we went to put it in the car, well, we found an antique sewing machine inside.  (I use it for a bookend...no way was I paying to have that puppy restored...) So, for nearly a year, it was just me, my three sewing machines, and my wonky serger.  Until this afternoon, that is.  
Ten bucks!  Ten bucks!  I told myself sternly that I didn't need another bookend, and that "as is" was thrift shop lingo for "ten-dollar-bookend."   So I did what any good thrifter would do---I sent a kid to the checkout to see if we could haggle down to five bucks.  She came back and reported that they had marked it so cheaply because it "sews when it's plugged in---there's no on or off."  There was also no foot pedal, so I left the store without the shiny blue and white Winter Super Deluxe Sewing Machine.  Pleased with my resolve, I herded the loinfruit into the van and we headed off to picnic at the park.  (The weather has been stunning---upper sixties and clear---all week.  Last year we'd already had snow by now!)  About a mile into the drive it hit me.  The reason it sewed when it was plugged in was that they were plugging it in to a regular plug....not a foot pedal plug like the one attached to my Universal at home.  I bummed seven bucks off the richest kid in the car and burned rubber in the direction we'd just come from.

It's really, really pretty.  To see even more pretties, scoot on over to Kootoyoo...