Thrift Store Finds for Altrusa

Today was a very lucky day for finding pretty things at the thrift store!  It was like the stuff was waiting for us!  Two weeks ago we found a copy of a 18th century French woodcut of a Ball.  The store said they would get it down but still hadn't, they had no ladder.  Lee found two in the store and after a bit they finally brought it down.  Here are some pictures of it.  I didn't want to take the glass off so the pictures aren't great.  And it was only $5.00!

18th Century French Ball.

Close up of the party!

Close up of the other side of the party.

The frame was made of a plain thin wood.  So we went to another thrift shop and found an ornate frame and it was the right size!  The frame cost $7.00!

Here is a close up of the frame, the roses are so lovely!

I also found this lovely old frame.  It is the right size for a large hand mirror.  Just drop a mirror in and embroider the back!

Lovely old frame.

Then I found this old silver plate coffee carafe.  The ornamentation is amazing.

Coffee carafe.

Etching on the silver on the carafe.

Ornamental scroll work.

The carafe in action!

A wonderful day for the Marie Antoinette Tree!

Found Marie!

After going crazy looking for her I finally found Marie in the paper racks.  It was a very safe place because I didn't find the embroidery for several days.  So hopefully I will get back to her tomorrow.

Lee took me out to buy some needlepoint wool at Betty's.  I got 51 colors to add to the 8 colors I had already.  So now I just have to decide on a pattern for a pillow.  I've been looking at some patterns in "Needleplay " and "More NeedlePlay" by Erica Wilson.  There are a few cute ideas.  But I would really like to come up with my own designs.  Certainly I have enough colors to make something quite colorful.  Afterwards we went to a thrift store and tried to buy a litho of a ballroom dance set in the 1780's.  The picture was screwed to the wall so they will call me when they can get it down!  This will be great for the Altrusa tree!  Then we bough some blackboard paint for some cabinets and came home.

Yesterday I started another needle painting.  This is of a yellow poppy and it is going quite well.  The next needle painting will be an iris.  I found a nice outline drawing of an iris and this time I will pick the colors, shading and determine the stitch angle all on my own.  Sounds like a fun challenge!

Back to Embroidering Pansies

Yesterday I went out to shop at Michael's.  This was a bad idea for several reasons.  The heat yesterday was hot for us and being out 2 hours was hard.  The coupon was for 40% off the entire purchase starting at 4:00 PM.  So I went a bit early and there were only 6 people shopping.  So I managed to get through the crowd of shoppers!  I was able to find some lovely white flowers for a bridal head wreath.  The plan is to finish the wreath in the next couple of days.  Then I went to the frame section and was a bit disappointed that they didn't have many old style frames.  I finally decided on this fake Marcasite frame with fleur de lys at the corners.  The frame is 5 x 7 inches and that turns out to be as small as shows all of Marie.  It also cuts out a lot of background that I would have had to embroider.  So I am rather happy with the frame.  While at Michael's I also bought some embroidery floss for me.

Frame for embroidery.

It was exhausting to go shopping but I have enough supplies for now.  To give my sore fingers a break I worked on the wild pansy some more.  The colors are different from the lesson because I hated the colors the author chose.  The original was in Anchor threads so the DMC equivalents may have just been off.  So this is my first try at picking out colors.  Not quite right but pretty enough.  When this is finished it will be the first quilt square for the embroidered yoyo quilt!

Needle painted wild pansy lesson number 10.

Goliath the Hummingbird

The last three years we have had a huge hummingbird I named Goliath.  I find it hard to believe it is the same Anna hummingbird but not many get that big.  Today I was outside and saw two huge hummingbirds!  The best part is that they were doing a mating dance in the air.  If you've never seen the mating dance of hummingbird all I can say is that it is pretty strange.  So maybe by the end of summer we will have lots of baby hummingbirds on the four o'clocks!

Yesterday we went to the gym and I walked 30 minutes in the pool.  Then went to JCPenny and bought two blouses.  There were hardly any people in the store and they were having a four hour sale!  They say that the company is having trouble with the way the prices were setup but I liked it.  It is so nice to see the exact price and not  wonder how much something really costs with a discount.  My opinion of why people weren't in the store was ugly clothes.  But I did find a 3/4 sleeve white blouse and a fuchsia pink long sleeve silk blouse.  But no cute skirts were to be found and Capris were everywhere!

After shopping I went to Beverly's and got some green fat quarters.  The pattern on the green fabric is the same as on the purple yoyos.  Then I also purchased Clover's small 5 petal flower tool.  The idea was to use the 5 petal flower yoyo instead of a tradition one.  Then to make green large pointed flower petals into leaves.  The flowers and leaves would then be sewn around the outside of the embroidered panels.  I've looked on the internet and have not seen anything like this which makes me think it can't be done.  So far I've tried making the small flower but it seems a little to small for the size of the panels.  The large pointed petal doesn't make the best leaves, I can make better ones without the tool.  So I guess we will see what happens!