Flea Market Finds & New Purse

We went the last flea market of the season up in Elkhorn, WI yesterday. This one is my favorite. It's huge and the prices are really great! They only do this one 4 times per season so I felt a little sad when we left. Thankfully, there are others that run each month all year so as long as it isn't too cold or snowy, I do get a bit of antiquing through the Winter months. And we do have several nice antique malls that we go to when the weather is bad but I just love the outside fair grounds atmosphere!

Anyway, I found some nice things yesterday. First a great pile of vintage embroidery transfers to add to my collection which is quite extensive now!



I'm always thrilled when I find some that I don't have!

Next, some really nice old lace:



Vintage lace is great because it takes dye very well! There isn't any poly in it!

I also bought a couple of vintage rhinestone pins:



The tree is for a Christmas purse for myself. Now, I know you know that Christmas is not my favorite holiday but I thought a pretty Christmas purse would be fun!

The other piece is for a purse for my sister. She isn't huge on crazy quilting but she loves my peacocks with the fancy yarn tails and asked me if I could do one on a purse for her but not with CQ. I thought I'd use a beautiful fabric background, do the peacock and then add some SRE and some crystals. Yes, she does like glitter too! Anyway, I'll make that for her birthday which isn't until March.

So those are my flea market finds from yesterday! Fun stuff!!!

Something I've been looking for but haven't exactly found yet is an antique Singer Sewing machine in mint condition and perfect running order. We saw a lot of them yesterday but all needed work. Either the cabinet needed to be refinished or the treadle was missing or something else was missing. I'm sure I'll find one eventually. I love old things and I thought it would be fun to have one and do my piecing on it and then do my finishing on my regular machine. Which is also rather old as it was my grandmothers. It's one of those really good Singers from the 50's. I know I've put way more miles on it than my grandmother ever did. Anyway, an antique Singer treadle machine is something that I've got my eyes open for now. Don't you just love the thrill of the hunt?!!!

On the stitching front, I finished stitching up this little white cellphone pouch for Scott's step mom:



This is a gift for her birthday which isn't until December but I'll get it assembled as soon as I get another sewing day.

Since I only have 2 more gifts to make and a couple of ornaments, I'm going stitch up another purse for myself next:



I pieced this block back in July. The pansy pin came from the last flea market that we went to a few weeks back. It really pops against the black background! The painted lace was a gift from my friend Lula. I've been saving it for something very Victorian looking. Anyway, I plan to do this with lots of purples and plums. I may paint a piece of that lace that I bought yesterday and I want a lot of SRE on this. I plan to start stitching on this later this afternoon so stop back tomorrow to see where it goes!