We went thrift store shopping yesterday and saw some awesome things. Things I did not buy, but captured in pictures for us all to enjoy. This was a beautiful old Dresden of what looked like feed sack fabrics,
hand pieced and quilted, nicely matted and framed, for only $2.00. Two
dollars! And yet I picked it up and set it back down. What is wrong
with me?! (Don't answer that.)
I always check out the framed art in hopes of spotting a vintage paint-by-number. Although no PBN was to be found, there was an impressive black velvet Indian painting!
I call him Chief Blue Eyes, a/k/a the "Chieftain of the Board" (or Bored?). Ain't he purdy?
He had a fairly hefty price tag of $30, commensurate with his larger-than-life size, I suppose. Alas, I left him there on lookout...though I'm not quite sure where he's looking. Northeast? Mind those Pilgrims, buddy, and keep an eye on that strabismus, too. Moving on to the Christmas displays, this cute little vintage blow mold reindeer was hanging out. All lit up and nowhere to go. We debated giving him a home on our porch for the season, but ultimately passed. Only ten "bucks" and it came with two allen head wrenches, for reasons intriguingly unknown.
The "ugly Christmas sweaters" and other holiday garb were in good supply. This vest was so blingy bad, it was good! I tried it on, but it was a bit too big.
This one was interesting. A fuzzy sweater featuring cute teddies wearing...fuzzy sweaters? It made me laugh, and that's always a good thing.
Coming out of the store, we spotted this car in the parking lot.
Holy Cheesehead! This guy is obviously a Fan, with a capital F, for the GBP! Gotta admire the creativity, dedication, and attention to detail that "Dan the Packer Man" put into his sweet ride.
And pretty soon, here came Dan! Who, unlike us, had actually bought something at the thrift store, and happily chatted about his car for a bit and posed for a pic.
* * * * *
In my own creative space, I am getting ready to quilt this piece, which will be a holiday wall hanging.
We have had a beautiful fall here. I've enjoyed watching all the trees in the neighborhood change colors and shed their leaves. The silver maple in the backyard is always the last of ours to drop. I lay on my back on the deck today to capture a picture, looking up. I kind of like the upside-down perspective, but it's pretty either way.
The light has a wonderful intensity this time of year. That's some consolation for the shorter days, I suppose.
Hoo boy, this has been a long time coming. I finally finished the Tea Towel Challenge 2014 quilt!
I had the flimsy sewn together way back in May 2014. Nevertheless, at long last, here is the whole enchilada. Quilted, bound, and hung on the wall last evening, right before the trick-or-treaters started ringing the doorbell.
I was a little stumped as to how to quilt it (it waited a year and a half...ya think?), but once I decided to finally put my nose to the grindstone, I knew it would require a bit of quilting in the ditch for starters. So that's where I began.
As things proceeded, I started to get a better inkling about the quilting. I'd scribble down ideas as they occurred to me. Funny how that usually happened while I was in the middle of something less than creative, namely my day job.
Some doodles worked, others not so much. It's why they make seam rippers. Thankfully, there wasn't a whole lot of stitch-picking, just here and there.
In the end, I determined that, overall, less was more with the quilting. I didn't want to cover up those chickens in the center of the tea towel with anything that would detract, so I followed a lot of the black outlines around the chickens and then filled in with quilted scallops, squiggles, lines, and loops to approximate feathers, etc.
I sewed some tiny yellow beads in the chicken breast areas, for lack of a better idea how to quilt that particular space. And just for kicks, I put a bead in the center of each eye as well. The beads make me smile!
For the quilting in the eight orange and green blocks in the outer border, I used a few different shapes characteristic of George Briard designs: Spirals, leaves, diamonds, and an orange peel kind of thing (click to enlarge).
The feathers/leaves were loopy quilted. A close meander filled in the yellow background around them.
I'm definitely doing the happy dance about this finish—with Sarah and the gang at Can I Get a Whoop Whoop!
