Thrifty Thursday

Thrifty Thursday Thread Thrifting!

Sorry, couldn't resist XP
Got all that thread for $2 the other day - rarely do I find stitching stuff at a thrift shop but this time I got lucky :D

Thrifty Thursday - Afghan Edition #1

I used to do Thrifty Thursdays once upon a time; thought I might try them again!

One thing I cannot resist in a thrift shop is a handmade afghan in good condition - probably because I know how much work goes into them!!!  I do have a few criteria before I buy:

1. No obvious stains (duh).
2. No aged-fuzzy yarn, matted yarn or lots of pills.
3. No loose or broken stitches.

I have one little thrift store nearby that gets new loads of blankets every month, and usually I can find a pretty afghan in good condition in it, for a ridiculous price!  The only issue is they are rolled up with masking tape (!) around them so I can't check them completely.  I have to take a chance, but they are cheap enough to do so!  Here are two of my recent finds:

This is an older afghan, I know - I showed it to my grandmother and she said she recognized the variegated yarn and is pretty sure they haven't made it since the eighties.  It has no stains at all and the yarn is only the tiniest bit fuzzy, mostly because I washed it.

Fresh out of the bath:

And spread out for a good look on a king-sized bed:

I don't care much for the short, stumpy fringe but the afghan is nice.  More of a throw in size.  My mother has claimed this one for her African-themed room, where it will fit in beautifully.

Cost - $2.00


This one is currently my best buy at a thrift shop; it is made with a smooth-textured sport weight yarn with a delicious rich sheen and subtle sparkles and is very heavy!  I would love to know what yarn this is.

It looked almost brand-new but had one tiny stain on it that I found later:

It doesn't show at all from the other side:

I'm going to try to wash it out with a mild spot-cleaner.

Cost - $2.50

I have more afghans - including a big knitted one - that I will show some other day.  I was just so pleased with these two I couldn't resist!

Thrifty Thursday - Box Sale, part 2

This was the stuff I left in the car :D  The last bit I crammed in to my $10 box at the sale.  The sewing box doesn't quite clasp, but it's otherwise in good shape!  It had a few needle packs in the bottom and an old pattern that was falling apart.  The snowman is a music box and plays 'We Wish You a Merry Christmas'. Both had $5 price tags on them.



About the hats, yesterday - most of them I made.  Some of them are Mum's work.  All of them will be going in my etsy shop to get a bit more Christmas money.  I've got 12 or 13 in so far.  Blogger is not letting me reply to comments, so I'll just say - Hey, Linda!  If you see one you really, really like, let me know :D

Thrifty Thursday - Box Sale!

There is a local church here that has yard sales to support their building program - they are currently building a youth center and soup kitchen that has the whole community excited, because part of rural living includes the fact that things like that?  The nearest youth center where kids can go to play basketball is over fifty miles away.  A soup kitchen? Even further.  So anyway, churches from other states send stuff here, and they sell it, and sometimes it's really awesome stuff!  At the end of the 'season', as in it is too cold for yard sales any more, there is a box sale.

Pay $1 for a little box, $5 for a medium box, or $10 for a kind-of large box, and then you can take home whatever you can fit in the box, as long as the lid closes.  Last year I bought one $5 box and regretted it - by the time I went back to get a $10 box, all the good stuff was grabbed.  So this year - Monday, to be exact! - I got a $10 box straight off.  Here is my loot!




A really gorgeous big basket, a smaller 'bread' basket, five skeins of white/metallic baby-sport yarn, two extremely heavy glass goblets, some little knick-knacks, a baggie full of old-fashioned metal shower curtain hooks, two brand-new boxes of Christmas cards, several baggies full of painted wooden beads, a very fancy game box for a game I don't know how to play, a brand-new set of measuring spoons, and a pack of paper dishes like you'd get at a fast food booth at a fair. Those I will be using this summer when Dad grills.  I also managed to stuff in an old-fashioned, padded sewing box and a snowman music box, but I left them in my car, apparently.  So there will be one picture for next week!

Thanks for the comments on the 'Red' post yesterday - the berries were easy pictures but it took me 13 shots before I could get the red afghan to look anything close to its real colors! My Mum had to hold it in the shadow of her house for me :D  Blogger isn't letting me respond to comments right now.  I hate it when it does that.

Here's a closer look at some of my treasures:



I would have taken a picture of the box, but they were running out so I put the stuff in my car and gave my empty box back!  Those penguins are a tiny wooden candlestick, and that weird dark glass thing is actually a medium green - maybe a vase?  I'm not sure, but it is pretty!

First 'Thrifty Thursday'

I decided to combine actually going thrifting - at flea-markets, estate and yard sales, and thrift stores - with doing something thrifty, as in to save money, for these posts.

Recently, my neighbors' grandchildren came to stay with them for a while - they go through my backyard all the time, which I don't mind.  What I do mind is that several times I have caught them peering in my windows.  They are girls, and preteens, so I'm sure they're just curious, and I never see them at night - but still!

I decided that my blinds aren't going to cut it, so I needed curtains. I'm on a pretty strict budget, so a-thrifting I went!  We have a nice little community thrift shop about ten minutes down the road, so I went and asked for blue curtains - any kind.  I have two sets of two windows that are right beside each other, but the way my house is set up, they are in two different rooms.  You can't really see the other set of windows unless you are almost right beside the little archway, so they didn't have to match.  The lady that owns the store found me one set of blue with white flowers - they are kind of angled, so they don't fully cover the window, but they are better than nothing!  The other set was off-white, in a sort of solid net (that sounds so stupid!) with blue stripes.

They totally worked for me!  And I hung a treasure between them, that I found at a Goodwill a month or so ago!  It's dated 1976 and I love it!  Total for the curtains was $2 a set, and I got the picture for a dollar.



That left the kitchen window as the last one that had to have a curtain - my other windows had curtains, except the living room, and it's too high for them to see in.  Still looking for curtains, though.  Anyway, all she had left was one panel of a very long, very narrow, heavily lined blue curtain with a shiny floral pattern.  I said I could make it work, and she sold it to me for $1.  So I came home, measured it and the window, did some cutting, sewing, and ripped out the tall, folded casing at the top.  I couldn't quite get the creases out of the bottom of the left curtain, from the ripped out casing, but I can live with that!



Two short, lined curtains to keep the peepers out and the heat in!  Love it! Now I just need some fabric to make some curtain ties.