Flea Market Finds

Time for another edition of Flea Market Finds! I’ve been finding a lot of treasures over the past few months at thrift store and flea market, but haven’t had a chance to post them.

The first one is a old quilt I found at the local Goodwill! This is made of old feedsacks and features a pink border. There are a few holes here and there, but overall it is in good shape. Not sure what I will do with it yet, but it is a nice addition to my collection of old quilts.

Next is a set of tin dishes I found at one of my regular thrift stores. The large pan with a lid is an old lunch pail – it reminds me of the lunch pail that Pa Ingalls used in Little House on the Prairie.

Another great Goodwill fins is this this cute little teddy bear is a cookie jar. His badge says “I Love Kraft Marshmallows.” It was released in 1989 and looks fantastic in my kitchen.

The last treasure is a vintage sewing box from the flea market. As an added bonus, the box was filled with some old wooden spools, trim and zippers. It has a few scratches here and there, but is in overall good condition. It is the perfect size for carrying one of my wool crazy projects!

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. Keep it thimble!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Radiant Folded Patchwork Star Pattern and Covered Box

As regular readers know, one of my goals this year is to release my first retail pattern! I am pleased announce that is is now available. The Radiant Folded Star and Covered Box is inspired by a project that I did with my grandmother over 30 years ago.

Buy Pattern Now – Sale! $2.99

Luminous Folded Star Pattern — Radiant Folded Patchwork Star and Covered Box

This pattern includes full step by step directions for both a fabric covered box and a table topper. Photos of key steps make the pattern easy to follow.

Christmas Star — Radiant Patchwork Folded Star - Holiday Table Topper

A huge THANKS goes out to Jen Lopez of Sew Fun for encouraging me and mentoring me through this pattern design process. Check out her site and all the great patterns she has!

IMAG0922 — Original Folded Patchwork Star Box

Here’s a picture of the original project that inspired this pattern – this is 30 years old and still looks as good as the day I made it. Thanks Grandma – I’ll see you at Thanskgiving!

Buy Pattern Now – Sale! $2.99

Keep it Thimble!

Wool Applique Project Notebook

I always have a few wool applique projects in process at any one time. I usually cut out all the wool pieces, get the embroidery floss, and the put everything in a Ziploc bag so it can be worked on later. They are great to stitch on in the evening when watching TV or just hanging out. As you can imagine, there are a few Ziploc bags sitting in my closet!

Sharon of Liberty Rose has a great idea for organizing all these items! This project notebook features wool applique on the front and inside cover (so you have a place to keep your needles and pins) and it pretty easy to sew together (I plan to post a tutorial about how to cover the notebook sometime before the end of the year). The notebook contains zippered pouches that are the perfect size for carrying all your project supplies.

The notebook is standard 3 Ring binder. I ironed fusible fleece on my stitching fabric so that the cover is more durable (especially since it will be used a lot). I did some basic applique on the front and and inside cover.

I didn’t go too crazy with the embroidery embellishments, since the main purpose is functional, not decorative. My embroidery time is better spent finishing up the wool crazy block that was started a year ago! A pocket on the back inside cover can carry larger pattern books that won’t fit in the pouches.

Now, when traveling, I just take out a zippered project pouch, throw it in the suitcase, and am good to go. Talk about Keeping it Thimble!

In other news, look for details in the next week or so on my first published pattern. In the meantime, here are some sneak peeks:

Keep it Thimble!

Fall Mini-Vacation

Just before Halloween, I planned a fun mini-vacation for the family. Statesville, NC was having their annual Balloonfest and it seemed like a fun event for a little getaway.

We got to Statesville on Friday morning and decided to take a drive over to Zootastic Park. This is a privately owned Animal with tigers, monkeys, snakes, and other exotic animals. It wasn’t crowded and we pretty much got a personal tour of the place.

I highly recommend this place, and it’s great for kids! After we left, we got back to Statesville just in time to see the Balloons launch for the festival. Balloon launches are usually done at 8am or 5pm as these times present the best lighting, weather, and wind conditions for a safe launch. As you can see, the sky was filled with balloons. My son was very taken by this and said they looked like “beautiful diamonds in the sky” (no, I am not making this up 🙂 ). He could hardly believe it when we drove right up to the field and could see everything close up.

His favorite balloon was the Flying Purple People Eater. Although he noted that this version had more than one eye and one horn.

Flying Purple People Eater - Statesville, NC

We walked around the festival for awhile, ate some junk food, and listened to some live music. The next morning we went panning for emeralds at the Hiddenite Mine. This was a fun, but dirty activity. Essentially you are sloshing mud and dirt around in a sluice so that you can find some treasures. I had the best luck of the group and found some nice quartz stones. My son saved all of the large rocks he found – even the ones that were just rocks!

On the way home, we stop at the NC Zoo. Since it was close to Halloween they were doing a special program about Vampire bats! We got to observe the bats in a dark cave (with infrared lighting) and also saw them drinking blood – from a feeding station not from a human!

All in all, it was a great way to spend two days – and fairly cheap as well!

Keep it Thimble!