Flying Saucers, Half Price

First, I have to say thank you to everyone for your kind messages about our Noll kitty. We do miss him, but we’re doing okay. I think I may feel his loss the most whenever I open a door to the outside, and don’t have to rush to close it because he’s not right there trying to sneak out. I’m sure it’s fitting that I miss him trying to be a bad boy!

He would have so enjoyed checking out my garaging finds from last weekend and this. Judy and I went out this morning and we both found good stuff. For two bucks she got the perfect little storage bench for her breezeway. The top cushions need recovering but it’s just right to sit on to put shoes on and off. And that green cashmere sweater for a buck…yum!

We agreed that everyone seems to have given up quilting and scrapbooking. At least two-thirds of our stops had those supplies today. Didn’t seem like anyone was buying either. I resisted buying any yarn, but I was happy to find some knitting supplies I’ve been wanting – stitch markers and a gadget for measuring gauge and sizing needles, and a pair of needles in a brand I’ve wanted to try.

Those three things would have set me back around $20 in a store, and I paid a quarter each. And the garage sale gods must have heard me lamenting the lack of scissors on driveways, because at the same sale I picked up what seems to be a decent pair for a buck, with nicely shaped handles.

The other thrill of the morning was a baking stone for my SIL (we were talking about them just the other day)

and something I’ve always wanted to try: a baking peel.

We bake a lot of bread and pizza, and if I can learn to use this thing I won’t have to use up a piece of parchment paper each time. Both items were marked $1, but when I casually asked if she’d take a dollar for both, she seemed quite happy to say yes! Thus freeing up a dollar for a movie.

Last weekend had some good finds too. Went out on Saturday with SIL Linda and niece Kelsey. Our first stop was an estate sale, and I was bravely resisting the midcentury furniture items…until I saw this table. Twenty-five dollars. One of the voices in my head said, “No! You don’t have any place to put it!” and another cooed, “Ooooh, look at those legs!” Then the practical voice chimed in with, “It’s way nicer than the table in the family room and just about the same footprint. Put it there and sell the other one on Craigslist.” I know sense when I hear it, so a few minutes later the table was mine.

There wasn’t enough room in the car to take the table with us, so I went back later to pick it up. As we put it in the back of the car, I remembered something else I had seen and asked if it had sold yet. A Fifties electric skillet that looks like a copper and aluminum flying saucer.

      

She said it hadn’t, and I mentioned I’d probably stop by the next day when it would be half price. “If it’s still there, you can have it for half price today,” she said. And it was! So instead of a whopping five bucks, my flying saucer only cost $2.50. Even better, it seems to work, and didn’t burn down the house when I plugged it in.

That’s always a plus, isn’t it?

True Grit. Seriously.

Had a full weekend of fun garaging with fun friends. Headed out Friday morning with Judy and KK for our usual bargain-hunting hijinks. First stop had KK modeling the merchandise.

Even though we kept finding sales where they were “way too proud of their stuff” we still managed to get some deals. KK tells me her husband was blown away by her finding these Ugg slippers in perfect condition

for 25 cents. At least he was blown away when she showed him the price over at Zappos…$99.95 (but free shipping so there you go).

That was kind of a fun sale for me. They had a previous sale about a year and a half ago, with tons of clothes in my size. I only bought one piece for myself, but I found a sweater for my SIL that she loves and wears all the time. I told them about that and it was like old home week. I found a good pair of footwear there too, these Wolky sandals that look new. Paid $2, and found out when I got home this brand retails for upwards of $150. Score!

As we were leaving, the lady said come back tomorrow, I think we’ll pretty much be giving stuff away. So we talked a few more minutes, and for another dollar I got some stuff to upcycle – this long dress (I’m thinking I’ll turn it into a tunic length with somewhat longer sleeves)

and this ever-so-bright Hawaiian shirt with coordinating pants that I’ll use to restyle the shirt.

Won’t be able to sneak around in this piece!

The moment that had us laughing the hardest came when we took a wrong turn and were making a U-turn. We spotted this adorable house, with the glads that perfectly coordinate with the house and red front door.

As soon as I snapped the picture, the lady of the house came out to see what we were up to. I called to her that we just loved her colors, so she laughed and came over to the car and talked for a minute. She was wearing a dark pink t-shirt, and I told her she wasn’t allowed to be out there in that clashing color. She agreed. Guess I should have offered her that Hawaiian shirt I’d just picked up, it matches perfectly!

Saturday I headed out with my friend Toni. We haven’t been garaging together in ages. At the first stop I picked up a Pendleton shirt for a dollar (always a good deal). As we were leaving, the lady asked if I were the person who had done the Shopping on Driveways program at the library last fall. She said she had really enjoyed it. Wow. I am rarely recognized on the street, though being spotted at a yard sale may not be too big a stretch. Still, I felt like I was having my 15 seconds of fame.

I think it was our next stop where I scored two gorgeous garden pots.

Turquoise. Bullet shaped. Love. She said she bought them new in May but is now moving, and we were able to negotiate down a bit to $15 for the pair. Pretty good price, and they even have potting soil in them. The teenage son hoisted them into the back seat, we strapped the seat belts over them, and off we went.

As soon as we picked up a little speed, something gritty got into my eye. Then I got grit in my mouth. From the passenger seat, Toni exclaimed, “What the…!” That about the time we simultaneously realized that we had two pots of very dry dirt in the back seat and it was blowing everywhere.

“It’s going down my shirt!” she said. “It’s in my eye!” I said. As soon as I could I pulled over so we could laugh…and brush off dirt. I got the piece out of my eye – it was at least 1/8th of an inch across.

Fortunately a remedy was at hand – her sweatshirt and the Pendleton I had just bought made dandy pot covers.      So we were safe from further onslaughts of dirt, but as Toni so eloquently put it, “Dang! It’s in my bra! It itches!”

The rest of the morning was spent trying to surreptitiously wiggle in a way that might get that grit out of our bras (and shirts, and waistbands), and giggling over it. We had a fun morning, but I know we were both glad to get home and head for the shower to rinse it all off.

When I took off my bra I glanced at it. Good grief, no wonder it itched!

Sweet Noll

Yesterday we had to say goodbye to Noll Baxter, our sweet funny boy cat.

He developed stones in his bladder that were blocking the urethra, and went into kidney failure. Much vet care reversed that and we thought he’d be having surgery to remove the stones. But x-rays showed more of the stone material in his kidneys. More stones could keep forming. We just couldn’t put him through multiple surgeries. So we made that hard, terrible decision.

He was born on my birthday nearly 12 years ago, and came to us at the age of eight weeks.

Edward was only a year old at the time, so they have been buds their whole lives.

 

As is true for everyone, Noll was not perfect. He could be quite the scamp. But oh, how he made us laugh.

 

There was pretty much nothing he wouldn’t try.   So we are sad, knowing how much we will miss him. But we also know that he had a good life, and a good death.

 

Rest in peace, little Noll.

Instant Gratification

Another refurbished piece from 2015. Still have that wheelbarrow, still holds water, still love it!

* * * * *

On a cold, dark day last November I bought an antique wheelbarrow at a small sale here in Salem. A case of love at first sight.

This was no mere infatuation. Still love the thing, still enamored of its metal patch that is so well done it holds water. We had to keep dumping rain water out of it all winter. I saw neighbor cats drinking from it more than once. My intent was to plant it with a festive medley of flowers for the summer.

We moved the barrow the other day, still empty, to the part of the front yard we call Middle Earth, which is very much a work in progress.

And on Monday the hubs and I headed off to a wonderful nursery not far out of town to get just the right mix of plants.

We looked and looked. Created little collections of plants to see how they’d look together. Moved 4-inch pots about and brought in others. And then I had a brainstorm.

This nursery has beautiful hanging baskets in full bloom. And their prices are better than I’ve seen elsewhere – less than $20 for a 10 inch pot full of a mass of blooms. I totted up the prices of the collection of baby plants we were considering, and when the total was several dollars higher than the lush blooming beauties in the 10 inch pots, our strategy changed and we went looking for some ready-made beauty. It was a surprise to me when I fell hard for a red geranium. Really, really red. And big.

Talk about instant gratification. Wherever you are in the front garden, there’s this major pop of color at its heart.

We also splurged on another pot for near the front door. Three different colors of those mini petunias that bloom their little heads off.

It’s sitting on the cute fifty cent plant stand Judy and I found last July. More plant love. Every time I look outside I find myself smiling at my instant flowers. 

I hope some kind of buy-this-now monster will not take over my normally frugal ways. Nah. It won’t. But maybe we all need a refined jolt of instant gratification from time to time.

A Cheap Education

One of my favorite parts of garaging comes after I get home with my new-to-me goodies: finding out more information about each thing. All those years as a librarian made research as natural as breathing. I love to learn something new, and I really love finding out that I got something special.

Case in point: last Saturday I picked up my SIL Linda and we headed out for the town-wide yard sale day in one of Portland’s suburbs. Our first stop was breakfast at a newish coffeehouse Linda had heard of. Turned out she knew the proprietor, who gave us our favorite quote for the day: "Midlife crisis... couldn't find a man, so I opened a coffee shop." Sound very Portlandish to me!

We had fun driving around, though neither of us found much. But at one of our first stops I picked up a couple of pieces of clothing to use in some future upcycling project. There’s some damage on this wool skirt I bought for fifty cents, but the fabric is unusual and I like it. since it’s a maxi skirt there’s plenty of fabric that still good.

When I got home I noticed that the interior details are above the norm (pretty rare to see hem tape these days)

so I looked up the tag and found it’s a designer piece from the Sixties. (And for the record, I don’t dry clean anything. This baby got a nice cool handwash and did just fine.) I wasn’t familiar with Nelly de Grab. Found some real eye candy of her designs from the 50s & 60s over on Pinterest. This Richard Avedon photo was probably my fave.

Fast forward to this week. Judy and KK and I were out on Friday finding what we could find. For once I seemed to be having all the luck, and once again it was mostly of the textile variety. Since I started upcycling old clothes into new, I’ve always got my eye peeled for interesting fabrics. I picked out some rayon shirts with matching skirts or pants in a box of clothing marked 25¢ each.

When you find the matching skirt or pants, it’s beyond easy to remodel a shirt. So these should be in my closet and wearable soon.

I think it was Judy though who spotted this linen blazer in that same 25¢ box. (Forgive the wrinkles, it’s been washed but not ironed.)

Linen, a quarter, what’s not to love? Zoe likes it a lot.

She barely moved when I turned it over to take a picture of the back.

I noticed that all the seams are finished with bias tape inside. This is definitely not something you see often on ready-to-wear.

So once more I looked up the label

and found I have another designer piece on my hands. I’m sure this jacket is a few years old, but it looks like it was never worn. And his current jackets seems to sell in the $500 – 1000 range.

Pretty good for a quarter, I’d say.

At one of our last stops I found a cool pair of midcentury modern salt and pepper shakers. Couldn’t resist them.

I took their picture with what I think is a hand-carved cooking utensil. Maybe a pasta fork? Whatever it is, the wood has the most satin finish I’ve ever touched, you just want to pet it. I liked the look of it with the shakers, which turned out to be Danish, from the 60s, made by Stelton of stainless steel and rosewood. Another new name for me.

At the same sale I spotted some small vases. I’ve been wanting something small to do little bouquets from the pots on my deck

so I brought home a blue and a green.

The blue is unmarked but the green one is from Norway. Isn’t that a great midcentury style?

The glass is lovely. Held up to the light it’s like green water solidified. And I’ve added another name to my mental database.

Even better, it’s perfect for its intended use!