Thanks Brent!

Yesterday morning my brother called to tell me they had just been to an estate sale I should check out, full of sewing and crafty goodness. So Bj and I decided to take our walk early and go to it. Boy am I glad he called us, the house was a weird sort of time warp. It was right across the street from the big park (about a mile from our house) and looked like it hadn’t been touched since 1972. It was very strange, and we were not the only ones who noticed. Yes a lot of times people have most of their things from a certain period if they are elderly, but this went beyond. One woman was pointing out to her friend that the canned three bean salad was from 1969 in the cupboard. Even the boxes of tissue were old and of the mint green variety. And unfortunately for me her fabric stash was nearly completely 100% polyesters. And there were a lot of them. But she wasn’t just a hoarder, she used everything. She must have been tiny (judging by the pattern sizes), and quite proficient. It think almost all the jumpsuits were handmade. It was so interesting. I did get some great weird orange fabric to make monsters, and this:
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A vintage boys pattern, a homemade jumper (love the button details), and some flannel fabric I’ve been looking for to make wipes out of. My favorite find was this:
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A little vase with buttons. I cleaned the vase after I took this picture and it’s a very lovely shade of chartreuse.
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The buttons are fantastic. I started looking for ones that would work well with the yarn Kay gave me, but couldn’t stop there. I also got some jars with neat lids and a vinyl tablecloth with that flocked backing. You may tell me that the odds of my water breaking in bed are slim but the thought of anything happening to our Tempurpedic (a wedding present from Bj’s parents) sets my head spinning so come December I’m taking counter measures, JUST IN CASE.

I stayed true to my original plan to knit up some handspun I made a while ago instead of diving right into my new stuff. It’s my old thick and thin:
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It’s going to be a baby blanket (per Sciarrino’s suggestion), but here’s the thing I very much miscalculated (and I was actually calculating with a gauge swatch and everything) the amount of yarn I have left. Now it seems that I will only get halfway. Of course I’m still knitting on it, why stop now? I’ll have to spin something up to go with it I think, but don’t have any more of this fiber… well, I’ll come up with something. I do love how the fabric is turning out:
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Hmm what else is going on besides me getting in a fight with Bj about paper towels (I blame hormones for the over reacting, but really how can you scrub something clean with a paper towel? They are for spills, and besides it’s wasteful). Well my friend Matt came over on Friday and I told him we were having trouble coming up with a good idea for the front pouch. Matt just happens to be an architect, and drew up this in a few minutes:
Housefront

(not the line drawing, that’s something I did in Photoshop, but the orange). I love this idea and so does Bj. We were so perplexed with what to do with the weird angle of the one side of the roof and I think this will be a perfect solution, AND give us a bigger porch than we thought possible. So excited. I emailed the Cadman to see if he could do some specific drawings. What do you think?

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14 Comments

  1. Love Matt’s idea! and the green buttons might work perfectly for the green sweater I’m knitting.

  2. I think that porch would look super! I hope it works out.
    I’m trying to decide if the people I work with would think I’m strange if I start knitting at work. We all just sit around and watch TV or surf the web or read, so why not knit. Right???

  3. It looks very cute! I think it will be good.\
    I was worried about my water breaking in bed for my first as well, so we did the vinyl mattress cover thing–HORRID!!! I was so hot and uncomfortable! Vinyl makes all those hot pregnancy sweats so much worse–at least for me! I was so miserable I ripped that off and decided I didn’t really care about a little wetness. I had enough layers that the mattress would be fine. And my water NEVER broke with any of my three.
    We have a costco-style temper pedic now though, so I know what you mean.
    Love the knitting. Love, love, love the buttons and the little vase!
    Smiles,
    Dianne

  4. I was worried about my water too. I kept towels w/me eveywhere, but also you could use pads like the hospital. i think technically they are called chux pad, they are the plasticy blue backed “sheet” they will put under you when you deliver. I found something similar at Target. If you google chux pad you’ll see them. I never ended up needing them but they were great piece of mind. Also for the fisrt few days after baby is here!

  5. I wish I’d known about that estate sale. I can’t seem to stumble onto any cool ones lately. I keep ending up at ones that say ‘estate sale’ (which I lovelovelove) but then they are actually ‘garage sales’ (which I’m soso with). -At a church rummage sale a few weeks ago, I found a bunch of cool, vintage sewing patterns. One that I picked up was toddler dresses that I am planning on scanning to you in case you like them.
    🙂

  6. Love the big porch! Matt is genius! Also, Julie’s water broke at 1:00 am while in bed, so I would take any preventative measures you can. Otherwise, you might regret it later…

  7. They do actually make waterproof mattress pads that are not plastic-y and loud and sweaty- check your local Target-I guarantee they are much better than a vinyl table cloth- I used them on the kids beds when they younger and you could hardly tell the difference between them and a regular mattress pad. AND they really do work.
    By the way-those buttons ROCK-especially the green ones and the yellow ones!!
    mary w

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