Now Playing: distant thunder, I think.
Current Mood : Happy as a hummingbird !
What a great day today was ! Got three loads of laundry out on the line on a beautiful day before it was time for volunteer work at Dearest Son's school. Completed all they had for me - even the stuff for next week - with time to spare. So much time, in fact, that I nipped off to the fabric store for a few minutes before returning to pick Dearest up. He'd earned enough tickets for a bit of shopping, but driving him directly to Target from school was a surprise.
I was a very, very bad girl at Hancock Fabrics. Spent $12. ! But I am sooo in love with what I bought ! A half-yard of repro vintage cotton fabric - sweet little ballerina girls on a soft green background, just too adorable to leave without getting some. It'll make something special for Timey and Dottie, I think. And a third of a yard of black cotton with stars and spirals in white and grey. It's hard to describe this material, so I'll do my best to make something with it quick ! Once I'm done here, I'm gonna cheap-serge it, ‘cause I still have two loads of laundry waiting. I keep saying 'no more fabric', but I can only hold out if I stick to shopping at Mal-Wart ! They haven't had anything new in months...
They had other wonderful fabrics, too - there's one star print I want, bad. $8./yard, though, with no coupons on the immediate horizon. Ordinarily, I'd just bite it and get a quarter or half yard, like I did with the ballerina and star prints, but I want enough to make me a blouse out of it. There's always plenty of cutaway to make doll clothes. But since I'll need two yards minimum, maybe three, depending on the blouse, I'm gonna hold off for a sale or a coupon. It really is gorgeous.
Went through the markdown bins, you'd be disappointed with me if I didn't ! I'm gonna try something, just for kicks. They had those woven labels in the bin, 60% off. You've seen ‘em, they say ‘Made with Love By " /(design) /"Fairly Popular Woman's First Name". If you mail ‘em to the manufacturer, package intact, they'll put your name on the same labels and ship ‘em back to you. As you can guess, ‘Dorrie' never appears on these things. So, I found a design I liked ("Specially Hand Made By"), and snagged two. And wouldn't you know it, one package of 8 labels was $3., the other, $2. Fished around some more for a second $2. set. At 60% off, two packs of $2. ones came to $1.60. If I hadn't noticed, two sets of $3. would have been $2.40. Double score ! And yes, I will be mailing in both packages tomorrow, and I'll let you know if it works, and what they finished ones look like.
But I wasn't done yet. Found several button sets on 80% off, from the ‘So Girly !' line. I think they're the same ones who made the makeup bag I bought at the first yard sale Saturday. Anyway, I got a set of rubbery ‘flip flop' buttons that will probably become real doll flip flops (55c), and sets of two blue ‘Cool', pink ‘Lucky', and green ‘Best of Pop' "record" buttons, each for 35c. They'll probably go on my sewing machine cover, which is slowly becoming a sort of scrapbook.
And I found two bags of remnants I liked, each for a buck. I got three four-inch-wide silver glitter-micro-dot strips, two yellow cherry-bloom cutaway bits, a quarter-yard of pink with white hearts flannel, a streak of ‘trucks' flannel, a chunk of cream canvas, blue/green/white stripe canvas, a third of a yard of black felt, deep purple lining material, black lining stuff, a gorgeous half-yard of cream satin, a third yard of yer everyday white cotton, some weird-textured white polyester, a half yard of brown suit material, a streak of soft white micro-knit, and about the same amount in navy blue, a wonderfully textured black peachskin strip, and three gorgeous sheers - one white, one black, and one crinkled white. Georgette ? Voile ? Too thick for tulle, but otherwise, I haven't a clue. Guess I'd best dig out More Fabric Savvy and check.
That wasn't all - there was even, at the very bottom, a half yard of "Disney Princess II" cotton, by Springs Industries. Of all the bags to pick - there were at least a dozen - I found possibly the only one with some DP print in it ! Most of it is pink, with darker pink, purple, and white bubbles (or pearls, could be either). Floral borders are surrounded by printed ‘beads' of pink and purple, and on one end, there's hips-up cameos of Aurora and Cinderella. That end has a scalloped edge, again bordered with pink and purple printed bubbles/beads. I'll have to scan it, Aurora has *such* an expression on her face ! It's probably designed to make curtains, but I'm sure I'll find other uses for it !
By the time I'd gone through all the markdowns and touched about 200 fabrics, I had to scurry to check out and get back to school. Dearest saved his tickets to get those last two toy lightsabers, and since Mal-Wart let him down on the purple one last week, he wanted to try Target. We found the last purple one, second to the last one we checked, on the highest peg. The green one was much easier to find, so now he has the whole set. I'm just glad he didn't decide to collect those $20. ones ! Nope, these don't light up, they just collapse into the hilt, and they run about $6. each. Amazingly, each one has a different hilt. Nice.
Once home, he installed all four on his sweatpants' waistband, and his pants promptly fell down ! I told him ‘beyond three of anything is a collection', and he seemed a bit prouder of his ‘sabers. Beloved Hubby and I both ‘fenced' with him, but he preferred to run around the yard, one in each hand and two on his hips, until sunset. He was clutching the purple one at bedtime. (happy sigh)
While waiting at the cashier's, a familiar infant sundress caught my eye. It was darn near the exact same dress I bought Baby Chrissy at GoodWill yesterday ! But this one was pink, and the embroidery at the hem may have been flowers, instead of fruits. Yet everything else, right down to the ‘So Sweet' appliqué at center front, was identical. $7. I don't think Chrissy's had ever been worn, either. It was kind of a shock seeing it there. And I saved $5. - not that I would've bought it new anyway...
I noticed that the scan of the cover to the Barbie catalog cut a bit of Midge's hair. Our scanner sometimes nibbles at an image if it's too close to the edge. Well, that wouldn't do, so I rescanned and reinstalled it, on the 08 April entry. If you're saving these to your hard drive, you may wanna go back and snag it again. This one's better !
I noticed that a few pages - really, only seven - had small red ink lines on them. Cover has a dark blue ‘B' just under the ‘e' in ‘Barbie'. As is usual for me, I wondered who'd put those marks there. Was it a little girl in 1963 ? Or an adult, much later ? Did the red lines tally what he/she had, or what was next in line for that allowance and birthday money ? Did the ‘B' stand for the owner, to show who this booklet belonged to ? Or was someone trying to copy that famous signature ? It's unusual for a child to be so restrained - all the kids I know write all over everything they own ! Ah, you just never know when you're buying used, but isn't that part of the fun ?
PS to Michelle - This weekend, I'm gonna post photos of the "Great Walls of Cases" for ya, ‘cause you asked ! It's too late to do it tonight (I want as much sunlight in here as possible), and there's rain forecast for tomorrow, so this weekend's about as fast as I can do it. So stay tuned ! (smile)
LOL! Gotta love kids. 
