Sunday Treasures from the Flea Market

Sunday was such a beautiful day here in Northern Illinois!  Sunny and warm. The perfect day for a flea market!

Scott and I picked mom up and drove out to Grayslake Fair Grounds in Lake County for the monthly Flea Market & Antique Show.  Wow!  The theme for this show was "vintage" which is right up my alley!

Mom & I found all sorts of neat little goodies!  These are the "treasures" that I found:

These old hats are covered with vintage millinery flowers!  I love to pick them up and take the flowers off for my crazy quilts and other crafts.  I sat here last night while watching Dancing With The Stars and took them apart.  The cranberry colored hat was commercially made but the pink one and the lavender one were handmade.  You can tell the difference with how the flowers are attached.  With commercial hats, the flowers are glued on.  With handmade hats, the flowers are hand sewn on.  The lavender hat took quite awhile to take apart.  But it was so worth it as all of the little flowers are velvet!

My next treasures are these beautiful vintage lace collars:

 

I don't see pink vintage collars too often.  I only paid $2.00 for each of these!  I love old lace and will cut these up for my crazy quilts.

I also found a couple of beautiful vintage hankies with gorgeous lace on them:

It a little challenging to get a decent photo of these but the lace is gorgeous!  I like these because the lace is on all 4 corners so I get a lot for my money.  I paid only $2 each for these!

My next treasures are some lace pieces:

 

Again, it was a little hard to get a good photo of these but the laces are gorgeous!  And a little goes a long way with crazy quilting!

Finally, I found a couple pieces of pretty vintage jewelry:

To use the rose earrings, I will cut the clips off the back with wire cutters and then glue a pre-threaded button to the back with E6000 Jewelry Glue. Then they can easily be sewn onto my project.

So those are my treasures from this past weekend!  I love Flea Market season!  I love the thrill of the hunt!

Be sure to see my article on How To Take Apart An Old Hat!  You can find them at flea markets and antique shops for just a few dollars and you'll get loads of vintage millinery flowers off them!

Needle Felted Easter Bunnies

I've been wanting to share with you, a photo of these precious Needle Felted Bunnies that my sister Kathi made:

Aren't these sweet?!!!!  These are entirely needle felted.  There's no sewing here.  Kathi is amazing when it comes to 3 dimensional felt work.  The carrots are felted too!  Like me, Kathi doesn't use patterns.  She just makes it up as she goes along!

I'll be back later with photos of my treasures collected at a Flea Market yesterday.  For now, don't forget that I will be having a drawing for this Crazy Quilt Cat Doll when I reach 400 Followers:

Please spread the word!!!

Celebrate Spring!

Checking In

Hello everyone!  I haven't been feeling well for a few days so I haven't been online much.  It's just a combination of side effects of the medication I'm on and withdrawals from dropping the dosage again and of course, some stress.  The economic state that our country is in is completely ridiculous!  And the state of Illinois where I live is just as bad if not worse!  I really think it's time to start electing real people who know how to live on a budget and stick with it.  But I'm trying to focus on my upcoming Crazy Quilt class rather than focus on things I can't do anything about.

I did manage to finish the assembly on my Crazy Button Quilt.  I will have photos of that soon.  I've been stitching on some small things and again, will have photos soon.  Please hang in here with me.

This is a photo of my friend Allie taken last year.  I adore this photo of her holding a precious Robin bird who got trapped in her shed.  If you haven't been to Allie's blog lately, please visit!  She does the most beautiful crazy quilting with loads and loads of flowers!

Crazy Button Quilt Progress

My Button Quilt is all sewn together now.  I spent yesterday afternoon at my sewing machine.  The quilt came out good and straight and square:

Now if only I could have gotten my photo straight!  LOL!!!  Anyway, I had planned on putting a light blue border around it but I'm reconsidering that.  It's 30 inches square and at this point, I'm not even sure where to hang it as my empty wall space is limited.  I don't have to decide on that right now.  My immediate goal is to get it assembled so I can take it with me for examples when I teach my CQ class in May.

The quilt is quite heavy too!  It has to weigh at least 8 pounds at this point!  Once I get the back on and add the "support buttons" to the back, that will add a little more weight to it.

The blocks are first sewn in vertical strips.  Then I sewed the strips together horizontally onto a heavy muslin foundation.  This will help to support the weight.  I use Allie Aller's "False Back" technque. You can find Allies technique in her new book called, "Allie Aller's Crazy Quilting" available at Amazon.com.

Do visit Allie's blog!  You'll love seeing her work!

I'll post another update on the Button Quilt when I get the back on.

For now, I thought you'd like to see the cat doll that I'll be giving away when I reach 400 followers:

I'm pretty close to 400 so please spread the word!