Yummy Stash

I got these wonderful items at the last estate sale I went to. Do you not love them? I especially am fond of the velvet leaves. The sheer pink with gold edges do it for me also though. (-; This person had 4 rooms of fabric. It was so much stash that I became overwhelmed. It was like a store full of quilting supplies. It was one of the first estate sales that I've been through that I couldn't look through all the stash. Just overwhelming.

How excited can a girl get over a little lace anyway? Plenty!

I went to an estate sale in Denver recently because they had a big bin marked "Lace". When I went they had several $3 bags of which I picked up "several".  (-; But, my favorite bag was marked 50 cents. Here is the contents. Do you think they mispriced it? I LOVE the Irish crocheted lace, especially the narrow ones in the 2nd photo since I didn't have any before I picked up this baggie.

I am wondering about the top piece of lace above. Is it handmade? What kind of lace is it? The second piece is a nice filet lace. The third is hand crocheted. The 4th and 5th are both handmade Irish lace. I just love Irish lace. The bottom piece is attached to some hand embroidered netting lace. The photo doesn't show it, but these are healthy lengths of lace.

The first 3 on the left are machine made laces. My favorites here are the hand made Irish lace pieces, 5th and 6th from the left. The two hand crocheted pieces are very nice also (7th and 9th from the left). There are 4 laces that are on netting (4th, 8th, 10th and last). I'm fairly sure the last one is hand done and probably the one before it, but am not sure about the other two - they are possibly machine made. Whenever I see laces like these they are labeled french lace. A lovely group of laces to add to my collection to be sure. I am ecstatic! If you know something about the laces here, please leave a comment. I always like to know more about lace.

Lace Luck

Here's some more of my good fortune.

Lace Laziness

So today I spent a good part of the afternoon ironing lace. I bought a good chunk of lace from a lady in Denver's estate sale. She made wedding dresses in her lifetime and I was lucky enough to be the first to stumble upon her huge stock of silk and satin and lace. As soon as I got it home I hand washed it, but then came the tedious job of ironing. I procrastinated doing this for several months. Today I don't know why I waited. You can see how this piece started out being a lump of lace and ended out being a lovely piece of lace. It was like opening a present each time I ironed a different piece!

My Good Fortune

I just bought a bunch of charms and rhinetones that will go very nicely on a CQ quilt. This gal had been collecting them for years and just decided to sell them. There are some really nice metal charms of Christmas ornaments, stars and Egyptian design. There are also tons of rhinestones and crystal stone settings. Most of these are either beads or have some other way they can be attached to the fabric.

Today's Crazy Finds

The only way I got through my workout today was to promise myself a trip to my favorite spots to find vintage embellishments. This was my take. (-; The buttons are just so cute!

LA Fashion District

When I was in California, I met up with Ingrid whom I met at the CQI retreat last year (CQI is the Crazy Quilt International Yahoo Group). We went to downtown LA to visit the renowned (at least to some crazy quilter enthusiasts) Fashion District. I just thought I'd share some photos of this shopping district. I didn't have my camera (thought I'd have enough trouble carrying my purchases), but Ingrid graciously let me use hers. There are, seriously, store after store after store in block after block of fabric, beads, lace, and trims. You could take a week to go through them all if your budget could withstand it. We only had a day and so missed many of the shops, but one day I'll return!

The Ribbonerie - San Francisco

The Ribonerie was a lovely ribbon store on 3695 Sacramento Street in San Francisco. The girls who worked here were the nicest of all the stores I went to and their ribbons were to die for. YUM! Best of all were the basket of 3-4 inch remnant pieces for 5 cents and the large trunk full of remnant ribbons for anywhere from 10 cents to a dollar. Of course you could buy anything you wanted by the yard - Mikuba was high on my list along with some vintage pieces. She had lovely stamens that I had to pass up. Sadly, I didn't get a picture of this store and put the ribbons away thinking I'd already taken a picture, but this store's worth the trip and we found parking right across the street. This is saying something since parking is a bit of a premium in San Francisco.

Laci's in Berkley, CA

I wasn't going to go to Berkley, but my SIL wanted us to pick up a breadmaker for our neice at a friend's home there and I found we were awful close to Laci's, so my dH paced the sidewalks while I shopped. (-; It turned out alright since delaying our arrival in LA saved us from rush hour. I was awful good here and hardly purchased anything.

Phebie's Needle Art Corner - Claremont, CA

Ingrid wanted to show me a little shop she frequents, Phebie's Needleart Corner in Claremont, CA, and it turned out to be a jewel of a store. I managed to get some brazilian embroidery supplies and some vintage jewels. I will definitely go back to this store because it is so close to my SILs.

Berger Specialty Beads - Trim Expo in LA

I hooked up with Ingrid in LA and we hit the fashion district in LA. We had a great time shopping together and ate lunch at a little Iranian diner. It was nice to have someone who knew the area show me around. I didn't bring a camera, but did take some pictures with Ingrid's camera so you will have to see if she blogs about them. We spent WAY too much time in Berger Beads, but it was definitely worth it. The bottom picture shows what I got there with the exception of the lace which I got from another store. We also went to Bohemian Crystal and Trim Expo, but I'd pretty much spent my limit and wanted to save some for San Francisco. I did get some trims at Trim Expo (top photo).

Michael Levines in LA

This LA store in the fashion district had lots of trims for great prices. They had TONS of fabric too, but I wasn't shopping for fabric. (-;

Britex Fabrics in San Francisco

While in San Francisco I walked down the street from our hotel in Union Square to shop at Britex Fabrics. There are four floors to this wonderful store, but my favorite was the 3rd floor where there were yards and yards of vintage and new lace, ribbon of all kinds, and buttons galore! Do you think I had fun shopping? (-; They also had fancy fabrics on the first floor, decorator fabrics on the second floor, and remnants on the 4th floor. I bought a few remnants, but not many. I found some Hannah silk that matched a few of my planned projects, some ribbons, and a small piece of vintage lace with a fisherman on it. My Dad was a fisherman and he taught me to fish, so I plan to put this on my memory quilt in his section.

A gift! Tatting!

These lovely tatted pieces were done by my friend Sunela at Stitchmap. She is an excellent tatter! It will look really nice on my Christmas CQ piece (as of yet unstarted). She is my apprentice in CQ, but she can be my tatting mentor anytime!

Vintage beads

I got these vintage beads yesterday at an estate sale. I was tempted beyond this, but these were what I could buy at a reasonable price! I added the pics of the black birds especially for Gerry K!

Metal Buttons

I found these buttons at the Salvation Army the other day for cheap. I like the ones on the bottom row the most, then the middle, and least of all the ones on top. So, would you use metal buttons on your CQ? Why or why not? Does anyone have any idea of how old these might be? i guess I would use them on something that was not meant to be an heirloom, but what about on something special? Could rust or decay be a problem? Could you treat them to prevent problems? Coat them with nail polish or something?

Fabric!

One evening's entertainment was where everyone brought in a lush evening gown to be cut into smithereens by dozens of crazed quilters with scissors. I brought a luscious rich purple velvet dress and there were many more scrumptuous fabrics available. Here's the booty - or sleeves - or...

Omaha Crazy Quilt Retreat - Stash collection

At the crazy quilt retreat many vendors sold there wares and lured me in with beads, fabric, trims, laces, and all sort of other temptations. I did succumb. Sigh. Here's my stash which now has to be sorted and contained so I can get into my sewing room to sew! Some of the crocheted goodies I got on the road when I stopped to peruse an antique store or two.

Jackpot!

I went to the thrift shop today to check out the craft section (because I like to), and found a large bag of beading threads! There was 9 small spools of nymo of different colors, 3 large nymo spools of different colors, one large and one small spool silamide, some round leather, and some waxed linen. There was also a ton of jewelry wire of different colors. Much of it was brand new and still had the price tag on it. I think I probably have enough to last me a lifetime (maybe)! Now for the really good part -- I spent $6 and it was probably worth about $59.00 at least!! I love thrift shops. (-:

Christmas Cracker Exchange

This is the lovely package I got from Jill for the Christmas Cracker Exchange (Crazy Quilting International Group). Jill is an expert in making silkies and she gave me 4 of the most lovely silkies I've ever seen! She also gave me some wedding dress fabric, lace, ribbon, beads, charms, buttons, and other little trinkets that can be used for embellishments. One of the little baggies had several unique mother of pearl buttons which are my favorite kind of buttons! Thanks Jill!