Good Junk: feedsack quilt squares

On Monday I popped into Goodwill looking for...well, I'm not sure what I was looking for, but while I was there I spied a bag full of old feedsack quilt squares in the locked glass case. This particular Goodwill is usually pretty lousy, although I have found a few treasures now and again. I've seen antique quilts in the glass case on more than one occasion, but they're always marked at some ridiculous amount for a thrift store ($70+) and have been in poor condition. The price on the quilt squares was also too high, so I didn't even ask to look at them.

Yesterday afternoon we were on the way to get Porter's hair cut and I knew that the 50% off color tag at that Goodwill changes on Thursdays, so I thought we'd do a quick stop and see if, just by some lucky chance, the color of tag on the quilt squares was the color on sale. It was and I was surprised to see that the quilt squares were still in the case, so I wasted no time in snapping them up!

I finally had a chance last night to go through them and I'm so happy I bought them! They definitely qualify for the title of Good Junk:

There are 61 squares total. Nine of them have been sewn together in a line, and some of the other squares must have been sewn together at some point because they have pressed seam allowances and needle holes down two sides. Most of the squares (50 to be exact) have nine little feedsack strips at the top of the pink wedge.

One square has 10 strips, one has 14, and the remaining squares have 15 strips.

I have no idea why there is a difference, unless the quilter started out doing the 15-strip squares and decided it was just taking WAY too long and dropped six strips for a total of nine.

The squares themselves are made of what looks like unbleached muslin.

Some of the muslin has yellowish spots on it, and I don't know if that is damage or just part of the unbleached-ness.

The feedsack fabrics are just darling and I know it must have been an awful lot of work to piece all those tiny strips together. Here is a sampling of some of the squares:

I'm not totally sure what I'm going to do with these squares. I don't sew so it's way beyond my abilities to make them into a quilt myself. I know that there are quilters out there that will take old squares like these and make them into a quilt for you, but I imagine that's a pretty expensive service due to the time involved. The sewing is not as precise (notice how most of the wedges are different sizes?) so I'm not sure it would be worth the great expense. They're too small to be made into pillows, and there are too many to frame and put on the wall. Any suggestions?

I figure each square cost me just over 25¢, which was some consolation after Porter's disaster of a haircut. He has portraits scheduled for tomorrow morning and his hair ended up way shorter than I wanted it to be, and I could just cry about it! I don't know what possessed me to get his hair cut right before pictures, but it really was looking shaggy and needed a trim--just not that much of a trim! He's not bald by any means, but all of his long curls are gone and I'm just sick about it. Maybe I'll feel better if I go look at my new quilt squares again.

Good Junk: Gurley Santas

Don't forget to enter my giveaway for a copy of No-Bake Gingerbread Houses for Kids by leaving a comment on this post! Giveaway closes Friday, December 10 at noon!
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My favorite time of the year at the thrifts! I haven't found anything stellar yet this year (although this trio of Gurley Santas is pretty darn cute), but that is partly because I can't go as often as years past. I'm still holding out hope for a late-season thrift bonanza like last year. There's still time! I've been good this year, Santa, I promise!

And speaking of Good Junk, I've been working my little fingers to the bone to get vintage Christmas treasures added to my etsy shop, The Merry Magpie--go check it out! I've already listed a bunch and just when I think I'm just about done, I find another box of stuff squirreled away to list. I think I'm going to set a limit for myself and if it's not listed by this Sunday, it will have to wait until next year. I've got other things to do--like figuring out a tree skirt and tree topper for the Jolly Green Giant. And decorating the rest of the house. And buying presents. And basically, everything else--I'm a little behind this year.

Good Junk: Silver Ice Bucket saga

I found the cutest set of faux vintage flashcards at a scrapbook store recently:

They're by a company called October Afternoon and they were from a line called "The Thrift Shop" that has all sorts of other paper crafting stuff that is just perfect for lovers of both papercrafting and old stuff like me. You can't buy directly from OA's website but you could search for an online scrapbook shop that sells the line.

The cards are punched on one side and come with rings and matching chipboard covers so you could actually turn them into an album--wouldn't they be darling with some photos of your very favorite finds? I especially like the one that says "Good Junk" so I thought I'd make that into a feature on my blog, rather than saving my finds for Thrift Thursday--because sometimes, they're too good to wait until then!

Today's Good Junk is fresh--I just bought it yesterday and I could hardly wait until it was light this morning so I could take photos and tell you my story.

On Wednesday afternoon I took the kids to my favorite thrift store to look for components for my Halloween costume. I've been staying away from the thrifts and estate sales lately because I'm trying to save my spending money for my upcoming trip to London, but since I was already in the store I had to take a look around, right? ;)

I didn't find much but just before we walked out the door something caught my eye. It was an ice bucket, black with tarnish but even though it was behind the counter on a shelf I could make out engraving: somethingsomethingsomething...1950. ~gulp!~ I had the cashier get it for me so I could have a look and read the engraving more clearly:

And I knew then that spending freeze be darned, it would be going home with me! Except for one problem: it wasn't priced, and this thrift has a policy that they won't sell an item if it isn't priced (too many nogoodniks trying to cheat and get lower prices, apparently.) It was obvious that I didn't remove the price because the item had been behind the counter, but even the manager wouldn't help me because the pricers were already gone for the day. What? Noooo!

The clerk said that she'd put the bucket in the back room with the other unpriced items so that the pricers would see it first thing in the morning when they came in at 8:00. Then she advised me to be there when the store opened at 10:00, but she couldn't guarantee that they'd be sure to put it back behind the counter again rather than out on one of the normal shelves.

I drove home, defeated, and plotting what I would do in the morning. Thursday at that thrift store is a day that VIP members can get 25% off, so there are always people waiting to go in when the store opens. I couldn't stand the thought of watching someone get there steps ahead of me and get MY ice bucket, so I made sure that we left the house early so that we could be first in the door. I even briefed Maren on the plan so she'd stay with me and not slow us down by going for a shopping cart first. I was ready to go, but when we arrived a few minutes before 10:00, people were already going in the door

We hurried into the store and went around to where the ice bucket had been the day before, but there was a conspicuously empty spot on the shelf where it should have been. My heart just sank, because I thought someone must have gotten in the door right before me and had snapped it up and worse yet, I'd see them walking around the store with MY ice bucket in their arms (I've had this experience at an estate sale more than once. It stinks.) I asked the clerk if she knew anything about the bucket, and she directed me to her supervisor. I repeated my story, and the supervisor pushed me off to another employee to go ask the pricers in the back room if they had seen it. The pricers said they hadn't seen the bucket that morning, and she apologized and said she didn't know where it could be.

I decided that as a last-ditch effort, I'd walk around the store and look for it on the regular shelves, and told Maren what to look out for so she could help. This thrift is in a space once occupied by a supermarket, so it's HUGE. There are probably 12 long aisles that are jam-packed--and that's just the kitchen and home decor-type items. The ice bucket could have been put down anywhere; it wouldn't necessarily be with the kitchen stuff. And I was still in competition with all of the rest of the shoppers in the store--it was a bit like a junking video game, now that I think about it. New for the XBox and Wii: THRIFT STORE SHOPPER! Navigate the aisles full of people looking for treasures. Obstacles are carts from the employees putting out new merchandise, slow shoppers, a 5-year-old who has to look at everything and a baby who refuses to stay buckled in the cart! Hurry to gather up your vintage goodies before other shoppers snatch them up or before the time limit is up, which is signified by your 5-year-old complaining loudly and your baby screaming!

We looked quickly through all the items but came up empty-handed. I was so disappointed and wished that I'd never even seen the darn thing in the first place and then, but lo--what did I see on a bottom shelf in the kitchen section? It was MY BELOVED BUCKET! I grabbed it up and Maren and I did the Snoopy Dance right there in the middle of the aisle. Our antics were summarily cut short when I realized that the bucket still had not been priced, which meant there was a possibility that the manager would invoke the No-Price-No-Sale rule and refuse to sell it to me AGAIN. And I almost cried.

Thankfully, when I went up to the counter to rehash my story a third time, one of the pricers took pity on me and tossed off a number so I could at least buy the darned thing. I paid for it and was out the door before I could lose it again! I came home and set to work polishing the bucket and the items that were inside: a pair of silver tongs, four tiny silver cups and what I assume is the bottom of a silver cocktail shaker, also engraved.

It took two aluminum foil-baking soda-salt baths to loosen the tarnish and plenty of Wright's Silver Cream and elbow grease to do the rest, but now my pieces are nice and shiny and beautiful again! The silver plate on the cocktail shaker is pitting and it's missing its lid, but I think it will make a darling vase, don't you? I'm assuming the ice bucket once had a lid too, but I don't mind one bit that it's gone because I love the engraving so much.

So that's the Silver Ice Bucket saga. Good junk, indeed.