Treasures

During November we visited a couple of garage sales and of course the Gulgong Swap Meet.  As a result a couple of treasures came home with us.

Firstly, at the Swap Meet, in addition to Mick’s bargains for Rosie the Suzuki Sierra, I came home with one treasure.  On Saturday afternoon I had been for a wander around and didn’t find anything of interest at a reasonable price, but did see one thing that caught my eye at the back of a stall of old tools and generally rusty things.  It was full of old tools. Of course there was no price on it. I mentioned it to Mick, and couldn’t get it out of my mind, it was so unusual.

On Sunday morning I went back over and it was still there.  I asked a price, he asked me what I would offer - $5 and he said “What about $10?”  Deal done.  One happy Janice.  So what was it?

This old tool box/trug/basket thing made out of a kerosene tin.

I’ve never seen anything like it and it is so well made, with the cut edges rolled over wire, like in early cake tins. A true depression art piece.  I now need to get a couple of flowering pot plants to sit in it on the back verandah.  Not everyone’s cup of tea, but I love it.

Now to the garage sales treasures.

We are now on the lookout for LPs, as we have a working turntable once again.  The band “Wings” is one of Mick’s favourites and we came across this record.  He was rather happy to find it at a good price.

I never knew that there was a quilter living diagonally over my back fence in the next street, until there was the sewing room destash garage sale after her passing.

There were quite a few treasures that I didn’t need, but some that did need to come home with me.

“The Making of a Peaceful Day” by Anni Downs has been on my “One Day” list and I already had the pattern book.  Finding the fabric pack, ready to go, was a great score and had to come home with me.  Now I have a project to work on once I finish my Blue Quilt.

Anni use to sell packs of 16 layer cake size pieces of fabric.  There were two packs of Contemporary fabrics and one of more traditional at the sale.  Yes, they now live here.  I have been planning to make the Crossroads Quilt by Treehouse Textiles, so the contemporary packs with some supplementary fabrics from my stash are now in a box ready to go.  This will be my project between Christmas and New Year, while Mick is glued to the tele, watching the Boxing Day Test Cricket.

A couple of books, some more random fabric and a pounce pad also found there way to my sewing room.  Just what I needed…..not.

On the same day there was another garage sale with craft items.  Also a deceased estate, but mainly spinning and weaving supplies.  Ooh, there may be a swifter….fingers crossed.

No, there wasn’t a nice concertina swifter but there was this, which for me was probably even better.  It does the same job but is homemade and you just move the pins to suit the size of your shank of yarn.  Why was this better?  Because I realised that it had been made by my Dad!  Dad was the Mr Fixit in the local Spinners and Weavers Club and liked to tinker making things.  There were quite a few things that looked suspiciously like his work.  He had a thing about making little boxes and there were a couple there, so I was pretty sure he had made this.  I showed it to my brother and he confirmed it.  I’d been kicking myself that I hadn’t kept one when the house was sold, but now I do have one.  Score.

At the same garage sale there was this interesting wool with a Japanese label.  It should knit up nicely.

The final treasure is a case of “Small things amuse small minds”.

See the little kitten with the yellow hat?  I have had the one with the blue hat for quite a few years and now have a matching pair.  They are only about two inches high.

I have quite a few kitch items decorating my sewing room, some of which has been with me since I was little.  I made this shelf when I was eight.  We were going to learn some woodwork at school, so I needed to know how to do it beforehand.  (I’ve always been a bit of a control freak.) The pattern came from a 1950s Home Beautiful magazine and had to be enlarged via a grid - no photocopiers for enlarging back then.  I bought the little squirrel at the white elephant stall at the school fete at about the same time.  I loved the fluffy tail.  Its ear got broken at some stage, but Dad glued it back on.  The little horse is even older. I have no idea where it originated from.  It has a broken leg that has been glued back on.  There is a little hole in the top of its head and I popped the feather in there when I was a kid.  On the lower shelf, the little tin is a money box and was gifted to me by a school friend.  I have another smaller tin with the same picture of a girl stitching.  The jug in the middle is a vase that Mum had forever.  Some years ago she was going to get rid of it.  No way!  I had always liked it and do use it to hold spring flowers.  The other little jug has been with me since primary school.  Back then it was popular for groups of women to go on a bus trip to the Blacktown Shopping Centre, when shopping malls were a new concept.  Mum brought the jug back for me on one of those trips.

So, lots of treasure, none of much monetary value, but all of it has made me happy.  It doesn’t take much.