THE TORN UP DOLLAR BILL

This is Women’s Money Week. I'd like to celebrate by telling you the story of a torn dollar bill.

I was at the dog park a couple of weeks ago, one of those gray wet mornings when the dogs are having a great time running around and getting muddy, and I was chatting with two other women about everything and nothing. Frank and Al paused on their walk to say good morning. As we talked, Frank reached into his pocket for something and a crumpled dollar bill fell to the ground.

He didn’t notice, but my dog Zoë did. She ran up to retrieve it. I reached down and grabbed it before she could and handed it back to Frank.

He was in a jocular mood, and said something like, “A dollar bill! Hah, means nothing to me.” And with a big grin he tore it in two and tossed it up into the air. We all watched the pieces flutter to the ground, where they stayed. In a few minutes he and Al walked on.

Judy and Alison and I waited until they were far enough away not to notice, then Judy picked up the pieces of the dollar bill. “What was that about?” she said.

“Beats me, but I’ve got some tape at home.”

“It’s yours.” She handed the pieces to me. And I knew what to do with a dollar.

Although garage sales are thin on the ground this time of year in Oregon, I found an estate sale later that morning. And for one dollar I purchased a professional-quality whisk for my kitchen, and a vintage sugar dish that I've repurposed to hold my homemade body lotion. (Three parts coconut oil, one part olive oil, whipped into a lovely creamy froth.)

Monday’s theme for Women’s Money Week is “Increasing Income.” Picking money up off the ground is one way to do it. Easier than getting a second job or working more hours or asking for a raise, though limited in scope. But the best way I know of increasing income is to utilize its corollary: “Decreasing Outgo.” And if you’ve read my blog before, you know I've always done that not by deprivation, but by confining most of my shopping to driveways. All it takes is a little time and some patience, and the knowledge that if you keep showing up amazing bargains will be yours.

How amazing? Decide for yourself. Here’s a random selection of finds that all cost a dollar or less.

2’ x 3’ wool rug!

Le Creuset kettle!

Vintage Vera linen in perfect condition!

Perhaps you have no interest in kitchenware or tools or DVDs etc. But I bet you wear clothes! Secondhand clothing is the biggest bargain around. You can have much classier and better quality items if you let someone else wear them for a bit first. You’ll even find some with the tags still on them, bought and never worn. How classy, how much less expensive? The twenty-five cent cashmere sweater is what I think of as my Personal Monetary Unit, against which I measure most other purchases. And I have found this deal more than once. Want a Jones New York silk skirt, Armani shirt, J. Crew wool sweater, Wrangler denim jacket, Pendleton wool bathrobe, and a linen sweater from Ireland—all for five bucks? You can have deals like this. But you’ll never find them at the mall!

So here’s to Women’s Money Week. Decrease your outgo and have the most fun doing it. Shop on driveways!

Mysteries in Thread

Went to an estate sale this morning a few blocks from home. Actually, went twice. The first time I arrived, about 40 minutes after they started, there were still 30 or more people standing in line waiting to enter. So I checked out a couple of church rummage sales and went back when things were a bit saner. I may have missed some good items, but given the way things were priced I doubt I missed anything I would actually have bought. For example, you know my weakness for vintage linens and needlework, and I loved this

but not five bucks worth. Not when I’ve purchased most of my collection at closer to the twenty-five cent price point.  I chatted with another lady who also confessed to having something of a collection, and she was just as skeptical of the prices as I was. But it’s always interesting to look through a houseful of stuff, and I meandered happily through the various rooms. When I ventured down the basement stairs I met the same lady heading up. “There’s an old embroidered pillow around the corner in that other room,” she said, “with a better price, but it needs some fixing.” I promised to take a look, and did, but saying it needed work was an understatement. And delicate old pillows are doomed in a household with a young rambunctious dog.

Back upstairs I looked through the kitchen, then headed toward the dining room. There was a breakfast nook by the kitchen with pots and plates and mugs on the table…and laying on the corner of the table was one bundle of cloth taped up and marked $2. It was completely out of place; someone must have been carrying it around and changed her mind and abandoned the bundle on that table. I picked it up and saw embroidery, and that there were several pieces. Without taking the bundle apart (which is frowned on at these sales) I couldn’t tell for sure what there was, but the grab-bag aspect appealed to me and I could live with the two buck price. And even more important, there was no longer a line to pay up.

  

Back home I ripped the tape off my bundle to see what I had. I was expecting tea towels, probably from the Fifties. But that’s not what was in my grab bag. Grab bundle. Whatever. Luckily I was in no hurry, since my bundle contained several needles and pins as well as cloth!

The first piece I opened had embroidered strawberries. Turned out to be a table runner with most of the embroidery completed.

 

There are some leaves only partly embroidered that are tinted,

which from what I’ve been reading was a popular technique used from the early 1900s to the 1950s. I love the shading on these leaves, and wonder if the others that have been completely embroidered had the same tinting. Mystery number one! This is a piece I can definitely finish, but I’ll have to decide whether to complete the tinted leaves like the others or leave them outlined.

Next up in my bundle was…some white cotton and flannel scraps. What? Just some scrappy remnants.

 

I’m wondering if the estate-sale people put them in the middle of the bundle to make it plumper and more enticing. Another mystery. I would guess that perhaps it was a guy who bundled these up, or at least someone who didn’t know that showing the embroidery would be what’s enticing! And I think I can use these scraps to try out that rug making needle thingie I got at the last estate sale.

Waste not, want not…

Another table runner followed the scraps. The embroidery is complete – and nicely done – but the hems have not been stitched.

  

I love the alternating colors of French knots.

No long runs of threads on the back for this stitcher!

Then I found a matching “3 piece buffet set” that’s been partly stitched. I have to admit I have no idea exactly what a buffet set was intended to do. If anyone knows, please tell me!

 

Should be pretty easy to finish these pieces, since the next thing I found was the thread!

All wrapped up in a white paper napkin, complete with needles stuck in there and there. Just think, years ago there was a woman (probably a woman!) who was working on her embroidery. She needed to keep her supplies together so she grabbed a paper napkin (maybe she was sitting at her kitchen table to stitch) and folded it around her threads. Then something happened to keep her from finishing her project, and ages pass, and another woman buys a bundle at a sale and finds her stash of threads still wrapped in their paper home.

At least I know I can boil them if I need to.

I reached the last piece, which I could see has violets stitched on it. I unfolded it and beheld…

  

I think this one is fairly old, perhaps from the Twenties. Again we have the combination of tinting and stitching. The thing that interests me with this piece is that the stitching on the text that’s been completed isn’t nearly as adept as the flowers and leaves.

 

Leading me to believe that two different people worked on it. Perhaps grandma was teaching a youngster to stitch and let her work on this piece? Or maybe she picked up this piece after years of ignoring it (I’m betting those UFOs – unfinished objects! – didn’t originate with my generation), and her eyesight had dimmed or her hands were not as steady as they had been earlier.

So that’s my bundle of thread mysteries. But perhaps the biggest mystery I encountered during the morning was at one of the church rummage sales…a poor, benighted bar of soap that had been ‘decorated’ with a frill of nylon net, glued on sequins, and a halo of beads on long pins.

Why would anyone do this to a perfectly innocent bar of soap? I leave that mystery in your hands!

 

Zigzagging

A guy was leaving the estate sale as I trudged up the hill toward the house. Muscled, mid-thirties, shaved head. Carrying a canvas bag with three or four ax handles sticking out. I thought about making a jovial comment about whether he was an ax murderer or not but thought better of it. It’s odd, but the phrase “ax murderer” does not lend itself to instant humor…especially when there are actually axes present.

After I got inside the house I could see why he had so many axes. This was a family into multiples of stuff. Of course we all have a bunch of some things. Placemats, napkins, flatwear, shoes, books – for some things you need more than one or two. But hole punches? There were about fifteen. Old scissors, maybe ten. Buttonholer attachments for vintage Singers, at least five. You get the picture.

It was the vintage Singer stuff that made me go back on Sunday. The lady who lived in this old house must have loved to make things. The basement was filled with canning jars. Upstairs, dozens of bundles of fabric, bags and bags of thread, not one but three big quilting hoops. I succumbed to the lure of a boxful of old stamped linens for embroidery, mainly because this piece was on top.

I haven’t embroidered for donkey’s years, but last week I took up the needle again. You see, all the pieces had fallen into place. Last summer I brought home the old pillowcase from a free box that was crying out for someone to love it enough to complete it. Only to discover I’d purged all my long-unused embroidery threads and hoops. Then at the dog park the other morning my friend Judy said she had something for me, and pulled a big bag out of her car. It held a bunch of embroidery supplies that had been her mother’s, who died over 20 years ago. Judy’s sister kept this bag all that time but finally decided she’d never use any of it, but just couldn’t bring herself to donate it to a thrift store. So she gave it to Judy and told her she could get rid of it if she wanted, so it came to me. I knew if I was patient I’d score the embroidery hoop I needed, but never thought it would arrive at the dog park!

The pillowcase is nearly finished, and when I saw this box of linens I realized I wouldn’t mind doing more. And there’s plenty more here to work on as the whim strikes!

In another upstairs room was an old Singer 201-2, the same model as my machine. (Though not as good a price as mine!) It was surrounded by attachments and gadgets, like those buttonholers. There were at least three different models of buttonholers and if the prices had been lower I might have been tempted. (Hmmm…maybe I should check some local thrift stores in a few days to see if they were donated, and the price is better.) But there was an attachment I only recently learned existed – a zigzagger.. And this one I really wanted.

But…I wanted it at a better price. So I took a chance on it still being there the next day, when most things would be half off. And it was! Guess there aren’t that many vintage Singer aficionados around. I haven’t tried it out yet; I think it must work something like the buttonholer, which moves the fabric from side to side. Looks like it will be fun to play with. It makes four styles of stitching!

Of course, the detail that made me really happy was the handwritten notes penciled inside the lid.

I took another look around when I went back on Sunday, and picked up this interesting tool for making rugs.

Of course my fantasy is that it will create rugs like the one we have in the kitchen, made of pleated strips of wool. (A wonderful piece, like standing on a really expensive gel mat. Of course I usually have to move Zoe out of the way so that I can stand on it.) After all, it’s so easy a child can do it!