What a Weekend!

... and I'm not even talking about the FAMILY part of it!  On Friday we drove past a yard sale in the neighborhood, on Saturday we visited the Salt Lake Farmers Market (scouting a good location for my booth next week), and then that afternoon we went to a GREAT estate sale.  And I have the treasures to prove it.

I've been busy sewing aprons (among other things.  I'll have pictures later this week).   For now, take a look at my studio.  

It looks like a cyclone hit it  like a creative mess, doesn't it??  Which is why I was not going anywhere near the "Where Bloggers Create" thingy this last weekend.  Heck, I would've been run out of Blogland!   There are over 40 aprons, adult and child, matched fabric and denim bibs, ready to sew.  And here is my furson Boomer, who "helps" me by sleeping in a box of old quilt pieces.  Better there than on my work-in-process piles!

Thanks to my dear friend Gerry, who gave me a great denim-bibbed apron last fall, I made lots of these aprons for the Christmas gift and boutique season.  (See posts here and here).  She also gave me a lot of floral home decorator fabrics last February (witnesseth it here).    So, when Bruce & I stopped at the yard sale on Friday after dinner (on our way to our favorite "Date Night" locale - the grocery store, LOL), I couldn't resist digging through a box of home decorator fabrics.  And I kept finding more and more that would make great aprons.  $5 later the box was mine.  And I also got a box of 100 pairs (or is pair the plural of pair?) of plastic gloves.   Lifetime supply of dyeing gloves!

Above is just a sampling of some of the fabrics from the box.  I spent a good part of the weekend washing and ironing them.

These shabby florals and toiles just make me swoon!  The hydrangea print at the bottom is a Laura Ashley.

Some of these (like the bottom one) I'm not so crazy about, but they'll all get used or passed on to my DIL, who is sewing her brains out for the Farmers Market, too.

And speaking of the Farmers Market, Bruce and I did go on Saturday morning and we were SO disappointed.  I must rant.  The (Salt Lake) Downtown Alliance, who organizes the Farmers Market has always been a choosy about who they let into the Market.  THAT is good.  In addition to the farmers and natural product booths, they've always included crafters whose products are handmade.  That, too is good; I hate the resellers of imported crap.  Those vendors who either weren't juried in to the Market, or who (like me) never tried and only have a Sidewalk Vendor permit, were allowed to set up booths at the south end of the park, where the regular Market traffic would visit.  The rules for Sidewalk Vendors were the same; items must be handmade.  Unfortunately, it was never monitored or enforced, so in past years, junky dealers and resellers gave them a black eye.

This year, an Enforcement Officer was hired full-time to be at the Market.  And since the area formerly designated for the Sidewalk Vendors was taken by a performance stage, all Market activities were spread out all over the park.  This disjointed set-up takes away a lot of the atmosphere of a community market.  And to top it off, although there are lots of empty areas in the park, they moved the Sidewalk Vendors a block away from the Market in spite of the enforcement, and the now-equal quality of the Sidewalk Vendors.   Those poor vendors were not doing well; their only foot traffic being those of us who parked in the free parking garage nearby.

It'll probably be an exercise in futility to set up there next week, but I do want to try it once.  In the meantime, I'm going to check out the local Murray City Farmers Market and probably participate in the Wheeler Farm boutiques, too.

But, I did find a wonderful booth called Twisted Spiders.  I had seen them before at Wheeler Farm, and there, like at the SL Farmers Market, their booth caused a sensation.  This is what I bought:

Check out her website for more of her lovely creations - pins (brooches), magnets and more.

Tomorrow, I'll show you my estate sale finds.  Tonight, I'm taking a rest from the sewing machine and reading more of my current favorite book:

See you tomorrow!