around my kitchen

I love the living room in the morning. 
I love the kitchen in the afternoon.

Pot scrubber octopus and hedgehog veggie brush.

Ikea foot stool with a linen towel from Nana Helen.

Vintage cake carrier for $1 at the flea market.

Solar powered friend sits behind mug rack.

in the end, i bought it.

Visited the flea market this weekend and came across a Corningware piece called the “Casser-ette”. It was $1.00 and in it’s original box.

I stood there and looked at it. Looked at other items, came back, looked at it again. Have you ever seen that episode of MadTV when Lorraine wants to buy that box of tacks but can’t decide even though she needs them and they’re only 50 cents? That’s sort of what this was like. Except that I may not have needed this adorable little covered casserole dish in a basket. But in the end I bought it.

It’s microwaveable and toaster-oven safe. I’m always cooking things in the toaster oven. And now I won’t need a potholder to keep myself or the table from getting scorched. Nothing better!

more green??

Stopped in at a new antique mall this weekend. Technically IT is not new – I’ve just never been there before. Thanks to working at the newspaper, I read about it in a listing of flea markets/antique malls.  Weee! It’s called “Wizard of Odds” and they had lots of interesting stuff and priced rather reasonably. I found many pieces of furniture I wish i could take home. Instead I added a few more items to some already established collections.

I found this little juice glass, a Swanky Swig, for $3.oo. The vendor had many of them. I chose this one because it goes with my other animal glasses. There is another Swanky Swig that has a spinning wheel on it (part of a different series), and I’m always looking for that one, but this vendor didn’t have it.

I also found this tiny lime green Pyex dish – the lable said “individual casserole”, which just cracked me up! I imagined putting a tiny crust in it with a few vegetables and some chicken and making a mini potpie. The stamped ID is 080, 8 oz. It isn’t part of the Verde set, but I do have a brownie pan this color. Apparently it has a lid, but this didn’t come with it.

One of the most exciting finds was this green cake plate, found in the same vendor space as the Pyrex dish above. I’ve been wanting a cake plate and after not buying one for so long, my mom gave me one for Christmas. A month later I found this! The reason I got it is because it matches two relishes dishes I already have! This one was a very early housewares purchase; this smaller one I found at an outdoor flea market in the fall (75 cents). We’re having a superbowl party of sorts today, so I got out a few of my items to use. Hooray!

a year of collecting

January 13 was the day I purchased that first set of dishes from the Village. Not long after I caught the Pyrex bug and I’ve been hooked ever since. Now a year has gone by, and I can’t believe how vast my collection has grown in that amount of time. I ended up at Goodwill Sunday afternoon and found another lovely, though lonely, leafy patterned saucer. Remember this one? I went nuts trying to find more, but not much as surfaced. After a google search, I can’t say more about the new pattern either. The back says “Mikasa Cera-stone Verde”, which is amusing because my Pyrex set is called Verde too! I’ll just add it to my leaves collection.

Also, I picked up this set of 5 gold-toned glass dessert/fruit dishes. I’d been scoping them out over the course of several trips and decided to go for it this time. Originally 50 cents each, I had a 40% off coupon and I don’t even remember what they ended up costing.

I’m sure you fiber enthusiasts haven’t forgotten that I mentioned my two substantial dyeing days. Today I had an afternoon of indirect sunlight and took photos of all the combed top and yarn. I was really disappointed with my last order from R.H. Lindsay. I ordered 5 lbs Romney and 5 lbs Falklands, but I’m quite sure they sent me Merino instead of Falklands. After spinning some I’m sure of it. We’ll see how that works out.

did you know?

Green is my favorite color. And in January of 2008, thanks to Cosy, I started collecting pieces of a Pyrex set commonly called Verde. It’s not so much a pattern as a color scheme, and that color is green. Over the past year I have picked up various items, slowly building my collection. Each time I bought something, it was washed and put into a storage box, since I have no cabinets. That made it difficult to see just how vast my collection had grown. Every once and a while I’d unpack the box, just to find out which pieces I still needed.

On Monday a box arrived containing one of the few remaining pieces I needed to complete my collection. The 503 refrigerator dish. A kind member of Pyrex Love on Flickr traded one of my blue dishes for the dark green, thereby ending my hopeless search (503s are hard to find). Thank you, Knobby Wheezer!

And because there just happened to be a nice unoccupied shelf in the living room today, I decided to pull out all my Verde dishes and take a group picture. Here is my entire collection:

d’ya like bread?

I must admit, I’ve always wanted to bake bread. It’s never happened though. In my mind, I have it built up into this dreadfully impossible task. But when you really think about it, humans have been making bread for a long time and doing it without fancy technology.

But fancy technology doesn’t hurt. Over the weekend, I found this Pyrex item:

I’ve never seen anything like it anywhere. When I found out it was only $1.00, I decided to give it a try. I don’t think anyone has ever used it. Part of my interest in it was the box, plus it had all its instructions too. The only problem: bread-making is a slow process. And I have almost no patience. Stay tuned.

card me happy

It sure is amazing what a difference having the right tools can make. For a while now I’d been using dog brushes to card and blend wool. They were cheap and performed the task to some degree. I can’t say that they made good-looking rolags, but since I had no idea what I was doing, it didn’t matter. However, it prevented me from ever really grasping the concept of handcarding. Now with my great new Ashford Minis, I finally get it! They’re just the perfect size for me and they do the job so well. I used them on a pile of Columbia locks for practice.

The subsequent yarn ended up quite lumpy. I didn’t get the second cuts out, so maybe I did something wrong. Or is that the way it’s supposed to be? I realize this looks remarkably similar to another bobbin of yarn from a few weeks ago. I did not do that on purpose.

And while I’m here, I received my box from the Thrift Store Treasures Swap hosted on Swap-bot (my first one). She sent me this lovely Pyrex casserole dish in the Forest Fancies pattern, #475, 2.5 L. I think we’re going to use it tonight for dinner!

redo, add, new

Either I have 10 [unrelated] things to say or no things to say. Today it’s an unrelated things day.

Last night I thought it might be fun to try navajo plying again, as it had been several months since last I did it. It’s quite an interesting technique; I’m not sure why I do it so rarely. When I spun the single, I tried not to over-spin the yarn, but keep it soft. I used the middle ratio on my wheel and did my best to spin evenly. The bobbin filled up nicely and I was ready to ply. There are a few fat spots, but over all I’m very pleased with the end product. Sometimes I over-spin and the yarn gets hard, but this time it stayed quite fluffy. I’m always amazed at the denseness of a navajo-ply. I love how different it looks from 2-ply.

“Symphonic”
Handdyed Falklands
90 yards, 3ish ounces

I stopped at a new thrift store while I was out today. It wasn’t newly opened, just one I hadn’t visited before. They had quite a variety of stuff; I was impressed. There was a good selection of housewares too. I found this set of mugs for $2.00. They go along with my other green Japanese mugs. The only problem? I don’t drink tea or coffee.

And I’ve gotten a haircut recently. Actually it’s been almost a week, but it takes me a little while to get used to styling it in a different way. This particular cut ended up to be very exciting. He used a razor on my hair, which people have done before, but he put so much texture into it! Usually it just falls flat and won’t stay chunky and playful, but it’s definitely playful this time! He told me I ought to get highlights – red ones, to go with my blue eyes. He couldn’t believe that I had dyed my hair blue, red, purple, and green. Hey, I’m a fiber artist, right?

a work in progress

That’s a fairly broad statement. My life is a work in progress. My collections are a work in progress. My knitting is a work in progress. And the weather. The progress today is cold. But even though it was chilly, the sun was out, so I made a spur of the moment decision to go out to that flea market where I found that nice box of buttons a few weeks ago. I wasn’t sure if anyone would be there, but there were a few vendors.

I bought a bag of buttons for 50 cents. The woman kept saying “50 cents” and I wasn’t sure if she meant per card/baggie or for the ENTIRE bag. She meant the entire bag. So I bought one.

Also found this interesting sauce pan. It was $1.00 and says: “Austria email – Made in Austria” EH?? Is it not an older piece? What does that even mean?

When I got home I decided it was time I cleaned the Fiber Den. Everything was beginning to pile up in a very ugly, embarrassing, and unhelpful sort of way. I had misplaced several items, so I was also looking for those. Of course I ended up with an obnoxious little heap of stuff in the middle of the room that I didn’t quite know what to do with. That always happens when I’m cleaning a room. Papers or unfinished projects or miscellaneous pieces of junk. And then I just stuff them into a tiny corner and forget about them.

cheers for unemployment

Being unemployed + sunny day = Thursday morning flea markets! I popped over to a PA flea market this morning, one I had been wanting to go to for a few weeks, and spent some time browsing and enjoying the weather. I found several happy little items including two Pyrex 501 refrigerator dishes. Also picked up two lids for my Bake Serve & Store set; a small divided dish that matches my other green relish tray; and an awesome box of buttons.

The refrigerator dishes are in a pattern I don’t usually buy, Crazy Daisy I believe, but they were $2.00. Plus, they can go along with Verde quite easily. I may be inclined to trade them in the future.

This small dish was only 75 cents. It matches a relish tray I bought back in January, one of my very early pieces. After going to the flea market, I stopped at an antique mall. One of the vendors was selling this exact thing for $7.50!  And she had the matching relish tray for $8. I know I didn’t pay that much.

I found this box of buttons where I bought the 501s. When I saw the $6.00 price tag I knew I had to buy it. The previous owner and I must be kindred spirits. She organized them all by color! How fantastic is that. I finally have a good assortment of buttons in a variety of colors rather than just having a very large collection of brown and white.