Come "sale" away

Ha. Ha. Ha.

Elizabeth and I were able to duck out for an hour this morning to hit two local sales. One was advertised as "Super Sweet" and was located South of Grand, which is a very interesting an eclectic neighborhood in Des Moines. It's no Beaverdale, but it has potential for interesting items.

The "super sweet" sale must have run out of sweetness before we arrived. I did feel a pull from macrame owls, though, just like Dad used to make sans the fluffy bellies.

We tried our luck at one more sale just north of the first location. Eventhough we had a map, I'd be darned if I could find the house. Turned out to be on what could barely be considered a street, tucked behind the new Dahl's on Ingersoll. I'm glad, though, that it was so hard to find because it was hardly picked over. Turns out the homeowner was running a sort of sample sale, and she had all kinds of goodies. I picked up three napkins rings, which I know sounds completely random. But they're beaded, and I plan on taking them apart and using them somewhere else. Elizabeth discovered she has a thing for vintage hankies, so she picked out nine of them and plans on starting a collection. The homeowner had some examples of what she's done with her collection, and I loved her table runner idea: basically, lay the hankies out on a muslin background close enough together to conceal the muslin. Then stitch with invisible thread close to the edge of the hanky onto the muslin. I never could bring myself to cut apart the few hankies I have in my possession; sometimes the borders are scalloped or trimmed in crochet or tatting that's just too beautiful to rip apart.

I picked up a couple of bags of random trims, including a few VERY OLD pieces of spiderweb lace. Another cute find: crocheted edging with rick rack flower insertions. Very creative. I bypassed a bag of SWEET buttons (I'm such a button freak) because I only carry so much cash with me, (a) because I'm afraid I'll misplace the real stuff, and (b) because plastic is so much easier to account than paper, being able to match a receipt with a method of payment. If garage sales ever start accepting plastic, I could buy all the things I never needed without having to hem and haw over which treasures to keep.

That would really annoy Joel!

This may disgust some of you, but on one of my trash adventures this spring I foraged for a Samsonite train case. It's been sitting in the basement waiting for a purpose, so today it's become Elizabeth's collection case. It needed a VERY good scrubbing, but it looks rather nice now, and I like to imagine that it used to belong to a stewardess (yes, I said stewardess, as in old school flight attendant) who traveled the world with it. Joel says it probably belonged to some old lady. (Kiiljoy.) But it's awfully cute and a great place to hold a little girl's random treasures.

Elizabeth doesn't have my love of history. Or at least she *thinks* she doesn't. I think she really does.

She did ask me, though, on the way home if the hankies were clean, as in laundered after being used for their original purpose. Ew. So we're going to soak, wash, and iron before we put them away.