Thrifty Crafting

You can tell the weather is getting nicer when I don't have much to post about sewing!

I know it's a little early but I bought a bunch of flowers for outside yesterday. I'm so terrible when it comes to making rational decisions in the plant nursery. I just want everything! It's still a bit cool at night so the new flowers are currently bunking in the garage for the nights and I'll wheel them out during the day. I think this weekend I will plant them if the weather is nice.

I have done a bit of sewing lately, working on my Big Project. I suppose it's not that big, but big enough for me. I'm making a patchwork throw from some charm packs I bought at the Creativ Festival. I just loved the prints when I saw them; they are from April Cornell's Maypole line. Of course now that I have been sewing the things together for a long time, they just don't seem appealing anymore. That's just a given I suppose. I'm calling this throw my "Rx for grey days". We get a lot of those here in the winter and it will be nice to curl up under bright little blocks of chintz and calico. Here's a sneak peak:

The last two times I've been thrifting I have had amazing luck. So much luck that I'm wondering why I'm not there right now! A few weeks ago there were a ton of cross stitch books, leaflets and magazines at Value Village, and rolls of new aida cloth. Last week I found 1oo new skeins of DMC embroidery floss for $2!! Yes, I said $2! So that's 2 cents a skein, when they retail for 49 cents at Michaels.

There was also a baggie of tapestry wool; not my favorite colors, but as I have wanted to try needlepoint out for a while this is the least investment heavy way to go. I'm sure I can find a project in the needlepoint book I thrifted a couple of weeks ago to make with the wool. All the skeins are brand new too. I don't know how much they retail for, since I don't even know where to buy them. I don't think Michaels carries them, but I do know that $3 for all this is a pretty good deal.

The tin the wool is living in was my old button box; here is my new button box:

Pretty huh? The purple is much more bright in real life; I'm just not that great at taking pictures. The linens are pretty, but not in great shape. I'm actually really happy about that because I have been wanting to cut apart some vintage linens for a while and re-purpose them. I get a lot of inspiration from Hen's blog in that regard.

And finally, a new tea cup to drink from while I admire my thrifty treasures. I really need to stop buying tea cups; really and truly.

Today I'm not up to much but sewing and volunteering at the kindergarten. I am trying to stay out of the shops today, but this post is making me think I may have to test my luck again...