Vintage Pyrex – Figuring Out How and Where to Sell (and a Quilt Update)

Sometimes I think I am this close to be classified a hoarder. 🙂 I am a collector of everything it seems, but really, I just love beautiful things.

For instance, my son and I love to, as we call it, go thrifting. And there is so much stuff that reminds me of my family, my mother’s kitchen, my grandmother’s kitchen as well as items that appeal to me. I just love finding treasure in someone else’s trash.

One example is the eclectic array of red and white dishware that I have. As you may (or may not) know, my kitchen is decorated in red and white. 99% of what is in there is red, white or red & white. So, I am always on the hunt for something that will work in my kitchen.

Well, this goes for many other things, and last but not least is my love of Pyrex. My grandmother had pieces and my mother had pieces – some of which are now in my kitchen and often used. So whenever we are out ‘thrifting’, we always make sure to check for Pyrex. And we’ve amassed a pretty good collection.

This afternoon, we collected it from the varying places in the house where we’ve kept it and then organized it by color/pattern in the kitchen. This picture (above) isn’t even all of it. I decided that since cash is a little tight these days, I wanted to try and sell most of this, with the exception of my previous inheritance and the pattern/color I collect.

This is my pattern, red and orange and white with a little bird, called Friendship. I want to take the wood panels out of the cupboard over the stove/microwave and replace with glass to display my Pyrex. I also have a couple of additional pieces that were my (maternal) grandmother that I use on an-almost-daily basis. Keeps me feeling close to my Grandma that meant so much to me growing up.

So, tomorrow, The Kid and I will go about photographing each piece and trying to identify the patterns and approximate date range for the pieces.

Today was a great day. I sat behind my sewing machine nearly the entire day sewing strips of 2″ x 6″ together to create “French braid” pieces. For me, a day like this is pure joy. Its almost therapeutic. I really don’t have to think and I can watch old movies and I just feel great. And this is going to be an absolutely beautiful quilt. I love most of the quilts that I make, but only a handful are those that I seriously want to keep. This is one of those that I seriously want to keep.I know that I wasn’t supposed to be starting anything new until I finished all of the existing projects under way. But I have put a large dent in that list and technically I had already started this project… I had two braids done and have been hanging over one of the doors of the cabinets in my sewing room for a long, long time.

Okay, its still early enough that I think I want to do a couple of more hours of sewing before I head to bed. Thanks for stopping by!

 

A Diversion to the Dollhouse

Okay, I am this close to finishing the dollhouse but I am having to wait on a few last items to come in the mail. The inside of the house is done, but just have a few details to add to the outside of the house, such as shutters on the windows, railing for the porch, door handles and a knocker. I may include a few other things, such as a mail box and an American flag. Oh and I have been working on a large semi-round welcome mat. I am almost done with the flower boxes, It is amazing how little in scale the items are for a dollhouse but what a large impact (including price) they can be!

So as to not waste time waiting, I launched into the next project on the list: the denim rag rug. Over the past year I have collected hundreds of old jeans, deconstructed them and then cut them into three inch strips. I completed about half of them and then I sort of got overwhelmed by the sheer amount.

So, as much of my projects go, I set it aside and planned to get back to it. At the beginning of this year, I decided that I really needed to get some of these long overlooked projects done and vowed not to start any new ones and complete the ones I had started. I would select one project and work on it until it was done. Such was the decision to start with my dollhouse and I have done really well so far.

So, having to wait for the last pieces to arrive for the dollhouse, I didn’t really want to start working on the next project, but I don’t really want to waste the days while I am waiting. But that is the trap… waiting for supplies and working on another projects and then never getting back to the original project.

So, I spent the better parts of three days cutting the remaining denim into three inch strips. (I didn’t take a photo before I started but there were three piles about two feet high. If I had to guess, I would put the number at somewhere between 100 and 150 pairs of jeans’ worth of fabric.)

This is the end result. The next steps are to connect them to make about 15 foot sections and then to iron them and fold and sew them. The scraps left over are going to be given away, the last time I made them into scraps for quilts which, do I have to say it?, still are not assembled into the quilts they should be.

So, rather than creating yet another project that has to be completed, I am going to give them away on Craigslist. Spread the joy, right?

Okay, The Kid and I are doing a binge watch of ‘The Office” and really not getting anything done. What a great day!

Two Words: Prewound Bobbins

So, I am working diligently to get everything done and organized before surgery, now just nine days away. Wow… I am both so excited and terrified at the same time!

But work continues on the braided rug made of old jeans. After finishing cutting and harvesting denim from more than a hundred and fifty pairs of jeans… probably closer to two hundred. I’ve sold the back pockets on eBay for a nice little bit and I’ve sewed together all the inseams and bottom seams and have (mostly) fashioned them into bags and purses. I say mostly because I’ve still to find a tailor or perhaps shoe repair place that can do the final seams and attach handles as my somewhat specialty sewing machines just can’t do more than twelve layers of denim and/or leather (handles or straps). I am excited about finishing them though, they are going to be tré chic when they are complete.

The three inch strips of denim are, for the most part, now combined to form reasonable lengths. It took some time and experimentation to figure it out, but I’ve landed on a length that I think will be most productive when I start braiding. I’m taking lots of photos and making tons of notes, I think I am going to do a in-depth tutorial on creating these rugs from start to finish, that is, starting at the very start to include collecting jeans and harvesting the fabric all the way through to the finished rug. So, I won’t put too much of that into these posts pre-tutorial.

But I did do something that I thought I’d never do while in the process of turning the three inch strips into the finished strip for braiding. And that was to buy pre-wound bobbins.

I don’t know why, exactly, I hesitated to do so, maybe something leftover from an early home-ec class or something about being thrifty and always winding your own bobbins. And heaven knows that I have enough bobbins and don’t really need to invest in more. But I found that with all the basic sewing that I’ve been doing, I have been just going through tons of bobbins and to sit and wind bobbins seems to be the most essential waste of time. Additionally, the pre-wound bobbins that I purchased seem to be wound very efficiently, that is to say, it seems to be twice as much thread on the bobbins than when I wind them, so I find that I am not changing bobbins as often. Which is awesome… again with the amount of basic sewing I am doing, nothing is as irritating just getting into a groove of sewing just to have the bobbin run out. And as my machine is overdue for maintenance, the bobbin sensor is getting in the habit of not alerting me and I find that I can run through feet of sewing before I realize that its not stitching! Argh!

So, here is officially my stamp of approval on pre-wound bobbins. They’re not overtly expensive (I get mine off eBay), they save me both time and frustration and they are help saving my sanity! Can’t think of better reasons to use them!

So, do you use pre-wound bobbins? I’d love to get the impressions of others who do a lot of sewing. Ever tried them? What’s your take?