Saturday Finds.

Well, I found one thing on Saturday that I most certainly was not looking for: a speeding ticket. To be more precise, an INATTENTIVE DRIVING ticket. My niece Taylor and I had driven waaaaaaaaaay out of our way to a sale that sounded phenomenal — Shara forwarded me the ad, which said that a 102-year-old woman had passed away and she never threw anything away. It mentioned vintage hats, vintage furniture, vintage tools, vintage this, and vintage that. It’s like bait for people like me. It started at 8 and despite my best intentions I didn’t pull up until 8:30 only to find…not much of anything. There WAS a big box of rusted and dented pots and pans, if that’s your sort of thing, but as far as the vintage goodies that had been dancing in my head…nah. I was in a hurry to get back on track and heading back to Fayetteville on this stretch of highway that opens up into four of the widest, most vacant (especially on a Saturday morning) lanes you’ve ever seen…just begging you to speed on down the road, which is why there is almost always a police car camping on the shoulder. I KNOW this, because I drive it once a week when I visit the booth, and it is my regular routine to put the car on cruise control because it’s so easy to let the speedometer creep up way too high when you’re not paying attention. But on Saturday I was too busy chatting with Taylor to remember to do that. The police car was parked on the shoulder, facing the opposite direction, but as soon as I saw it I put my blinker on and pulled over — she hadn’t even had time to put her lights on. Honestly, I don’t understand people that get mad about getting pulled over for speeding. There’s just nothing to argue about there and it’s not like this is a speed trap; it’s a 55 MPH zone.  She ended up giving me an Inattentive Driving ticket instead of a speeding ticket because, she said, that way it wouldn’t cause my insurance to go up. At first, I thought this was really nice, but later, I started thinking that Inattentive Driving sounds worse than speeding to me and when I googled to see what I could find out about it I learned that small municipalities do this frequently because they get to keep the entire fine, instead of passing a portion on to the state, as they do with speeding tickets. So she probably wasn’t trying to be that nice after all. But, heck, at least my insurance won’t go up. The $145 ticket will have to come out of my booth money, which definitely cast a damper on the rest of the day.

To add insult to injury, I drove A LOT on Saturday but didn’t really have a whole ton of stuff to show for it. My favorite find came late in the day when, out of desperation, I drove 40 minutes to a town North of Fayetteville. I found these two quilts — odd that they were still there that late in the day, I thought, though they were not being showed off to their maximum potential — they were folded inside out, so the pattern of the quilt didn’t show, and in a zippered, clear plastic bag, so it wasn’t immediately obvious that they were 1. quilts and 2. old. Once I had them unfolded I thought they were probably priced really high since they were still there and I was pretty surprised to be quoted  $7 for each.

I am in love with this quilt and will probably keep it. The flames of my love for it are fanned by the fact that, on the back, in crooked, quirky embroidery, are the words “To Gene, Love Grandma, 1950.” Oh, Gene, how could you let go of this beautiful quilt? It is not without flaws — as you can see the center of a lot of the hexagons are missing and though a soak in Oxyclean got a lot of the spots out, there is still a place that is yellowish that I’m still working on. (Suggestions for getting stubborn stains out of vintage linens are most welcome and appreciated.) The prints are feed sacks, though, and the colors are faded vintage perfection.

The second quilt, I have questions about. Perhaps you can answer. Is it old? Based on the fact that it was one of three quilts and the other two most decidedly were, I think it is. Is it handmade? The stitches are regular, but not too terribly regular, and there is a fancy kind of stitch on there that looks machine-made, but I know nothing about quilt stitches and for all I know, they can get pretty fancy.

This one has no tears or rips, all the fabric seems to be intact, but it has a couple of spots that I am doubting that I can get out. I soaked it in Oxyclean and used Resolve on it with no luck. It’s currently drying on the back deck with another round of Resolve on it, but I don’t think I’m going to be able to get the spots out. So I don’t know if I can sell it or not and, if so, for how much. There was a third quilt that I am kicking myself for not getting — again, beautiful, faded vintage colors but one whole side of it was frayed and torn, beyond fixing. I was about halfway home when I realized how pretty it would have looked with the intact portion framed in a vintage, cream-colored frame. Argh.

At the same sale, I got this light globe:

I have five of these now. Ridiculous. I never pay more than a couple of bucks for them and I had the thought that I would put them on Etsy but there are thousands for sale on there right now so I don’t know if it’s worth it. I just love them.

This is just a cheesy Hobby Lobby chandelier but I couldn’t resist it. It was cheap enough that I could resell it but I’m thinking about keeping it for the kids’ room once they get out of the crib and into the Jenny Lind beds — I could hang it over the bedside table I’m thinking of putting in between the twin beds. I would have to change the whole color scheme I was planning but it might be worth it to use this. Maybe turquoise and red? Or turquoise and yellow? Those beds would be adorable in either a red or yellow…

This old floor lamp was only fifty cents! Of course I bought it. It is in good working condition and currently being painted Ocean Breeze Blue.

I got a few other little things but that’s about all I ended up with…not even enough to pay for my speeding ticket. INSERT FROWNY FACE HERE.

Linking with the Nifty Thrifty over at A Living Space.