A FUN FRUGAL WEEK

Hello dear friends!  Hope you are having a sunshiny day where ever you are! One day this past week it was warm enough to go out with just a heavy sweater instead of a Winter coat.  We hung laundry out on the line.  Unfortunately, the warm weather didn't last, but it was nice to get a sneak peek of Spring.  But it can still be Spring inside, the amaryllis that my friend Mary gave us for Christmas is blooming.  I love how it looks like an Easter lily.

Can you believe it soon will be Lent?  BTW, see that quilt on the loveseat? Here's a better look:

Bought it for $3 at an estate sale this week!  I'm not much for Sring-like pastels, but wanted something more cheerful than my usual earthy colors for the coming season.  This fit the bill and I certainly couldn't argue with the price, plus in a few months I can sell it at my garage sale and recoup the cost.  At the same sale, I bought this big bin of thread for $7:

There were at least fifty spools of thread and a couple pairs of dressmaker's shears. These are the sort of things I look for at estate sales,  I go through a lot of thread, sewing those woolen quilts.  BTW, thank you Jen  for sending me the green wool for my current quilt, it was just the thing  to give me the incentive to finish it.  We've bought lightbulbs, cleaning and car washing supplies, house paint and wood stains, tools and candles for pennies on the dollar at them.  As a matter of fact I purchased two Yankee Candles that had never been used for $1 each.  How much do those things run in the store?  So I'd say it's a thrifty thing to check out the estate sales, when there's one in your area.  Estates sales have more than just antiques and dated furniture.

Another thing I've had pretty good luck finding at estate sales, is bed linens.  It seems a lot of people buy sheets and never take them out of the packages.  Speaking of which, we needed to buy a new mattress cover, so I suggested to Ran that we check out the Goodwill first, our local one gets a lot of new-in-the-package bed linens from Target.  Sure enough!  There was one for only $4.99.  A lot cheaper than Wal-Mart's price of $20.  I also found two skeins of Paton's wool yarn for $1.99 each.  It's my favorite yarn for knitting mittens and warm socks, so I was pleased to find that!  BTW, I finally finished these mitten:

Once I block them, I'll pack them away for Jamie for Christmas.  I also made a crazy quilt pillow from that that shawl I wrote about a while back.  I was getting overwhelmed by all the projects I had in progress, so I decided just to give up on the shawl and make a pillow from what I had finished.

Sometimes you just have to admit defeat and resign yourself to the fact there will never be enough time in the day to do all that you want.  I feel so much better getting these two projects out of the way. I'm going to forget about knitting for a while and do some quick projects like aprons and table runners, maybe a tote bag.  Things I can do in a day or two.

 Our local thrift store is holding their annual sale and everything is 85% off.  I bought a couple very large blouses with some cute prints  to make some sundresses for Violet, they were 50 cents each.  I also found a  Eddie Bauer skirt for 30 cents and a pair of  cute corduroy paisley Vera Bradley pajama bottoms for 50 cents that have enough fabric to make a pair of pull-on pants for Violet.  Good enough for play clothes.  Also snagged some more woolen goods for the quilts,  I want to make some lap-sized ones for gifts.

While we were in town,  we stopped by the local independently owned grocery store to see if they had any reduced-for-quick-sale milk for the strays.  They did, $1/gallon.  And they also had two 1.5 pound chunks of sharp Cheddar cheese for $2.99 ($2/lb) which I took home, grated and froze.  They also had dried garbanzo beans for 75 cents a one-pound bag, which I canned up.

It made up 7 pints for a little more than 20 cents a jar.  I know a can of garbanzo beans sells for more than $1 a can, so when people ask if canning pays, I can say it certainly does.  Plus my home-canned doesn't have any corn syrup, preservatives or artificial colors.

On another day, Ran took me to the Big City,  because we wanted to purchase some wooden posts from the Re-Use-It center,  that we spotted there earlier, for a project we will be working on, once the weather warms up.  They were still there, hurray!  And they lowered the price form $50 each to $40 each.  Sometimes it pays to procrastinate.  We stopped at the other  Re-Use-It center because they always have such good deals on china.  I wanted something Spring-ish for the next few months, but didn't want to pay too much for them. I found six pretty  brown transferware ones for 25 cents each and four Johnson Brothers Autumn Delight patterned ones that I'll tuck away for Fall teas, again at  25 cents each.

While I was there I rifled through their few racks of clothes, looking for more woolen pieces.  Didn't find any, but I did find this pretty jacket from Lands' End for 50 cents:

It has such a pretty lining and fits like a dream,  usually jackets and blazers have too short of a body for me.  BTW, Laurie said she would be interested in seeing some of my get-ups, as I talk about how I don't dress like the normal 60-ish woman. Well, I tried!  But to say that I am not a model, would be an understatement!  After standing there,  trying not to blink while Ran fiddled with the camera, I got several shots with my eyes closed, my mouth open, my hair sticking out in every direction.  The best shot was this one, which he snapped as I was walking off, I was so-over the whole modeling episode:

Christy Brinkley, I aint!  BTW, you can see how long my braid is, I really want your opinion.  Do you think I should cut my hair?  Been debating this for the past few months.

Gardening

We planted some lettuce  in our cold frame this week.  We also stuck a pot of green onion starts in there.  Something I learned from my friend, Regina is to plant the root ends of your green onions in the dirt and they self-propagate.

Baking

We've been experimenting with making sourdough, after Miriam left a comment on last week's post,  it resparked an interest. Maybe you are familiar with Cracker Barrel's sourdough bread?  That's the flavor we are going for.  We did find a recipe for one of those copycat recipes, but it's not quite there yet, but getting close.  We really love how soft  Andrea's bread recipe is, so we combined those two. So we'll continue to experiment.  If we ever get it just right, I'll be sure to let you know.

I'll forego my list of thrifty things I did this week, as this post is basically just a long list of them.  So that's it for another week at the old Zempel boarding house.  I hope that this week will be a joyful and pleasant one for you!

Hugs
Jane