Thursday, June 5, 2008

Flea Market Finds, Episode 1: The Fabric Menace

Okay, so I mentioned that I'd been to the local flea market. First just let me say that the flea market is a dangerous place for me to visit. I spent entirely too much money. Entirely. I felt the need to "adopt" half of the store. I spent a good hour and a half in there, and when it came to decision time I felt like I was choosing puppies to be saved from euthanization instead of shopping from a multitude of other people's castoffs . However, I'm really happy with what I bought, and like so many other things I want to buy, I have now forgotten about most of what I decided to leave behind.

This is part one of my flea market purchases, "Episode 1", if you will. (Please indulge me the corny Star Wars reference.)

First up is a piece of lightweight Winnie the Pooh fabric hemmed around the edges (it was labeled as a "baby blanket"), and a somewhat wonky quilt block. I'm not sure if the quilt block is salvagable or not as it isn't square and doesn't lay completely flat. That's a project for another day (or year).

And please ignore the wrinkles in anything you see here. I can't be bothered to iron just for pictures. I'll do that when I actually want to use the stuff.

In this photo, from top to bottom:
  1. a bunch (haven't counted) of hand-pieced 4-patches.
  2. over 3 yards of 36" wide pink gingham, which I am totally stoked about since that's the new Tie One On theme.
  3. a large, oval tablecloth. Maybe has a future as a bag.
  4. another table cloth, large & oblong. Love the pattern on this one...could end up as a bag also.
  5. my favorite piece (from this group, anyway) a hand-embroidered baby quilt top. There are 8 embroidered blocks, set together with plain pink squares. Here is some detail of the blocks:

They're just too adorable. I can't decide what to do about this one, but I think I'm going to take it apart and reconstruct a small quilt out of the blocks, squaring things up as I go and probably using a better quality fabric or maybe even some quilt blocks to set it together. And maybe I'll even get ambitious and hand quilt it when I'm finished. I might be getting a little ahead of myself with that one, but it's a thought.

We're forecasted to get some really nasty weather tonight, so if you're reading this from, I don't know, anywhere in the Midwest stay safe. My hubby has requested this for dinner, so I'm going home to fry bacon and either embroider or crochet.

Stay tuned: Flea Market Finds, Episode Two!

2 comments:

Miss to Mrs said...

You hit the jack pot! I plan to be in your neck of the woods next weekend. I want to stop by the shop (everyone around me is having babies, which means lots of baby quilts), but now I may have to stop at the flea market too. Great! Maybe I could just stop at the city limits and leave my money there.

Sarah said...

Great flea market finds! Just came across your blog- didn't realize you were a blogger, too. :)

Sarah G.