A Crafter’s Estate Sale

This past Saturday I wanted to go thrift store shopping. I haven’t been in a long time & I was itching to go plundering in other people’s stuff! That morning I met my parents at the local Denny’s for breakfast as they are my usual cohorts in thrifting adventures. We were planning on staying in town & visiting some thrifty places in the area. Dad had a lead on an estate sale happening that day & we decided to visit it first. That turned out to be the only place we visited that day & you’ll see why below!

A Crafter’s Estate Sale

The estate sale was held inside the home, as estate sales usually are, by the children of the former owners. I don’t know exactly what happened to the owners & I didn’t think to ask. When I first walked in I spotted a plastic tote full of thread cones. That really got me excited! I soon discovered that a big portion of what was for sale was crafting supplies. This is a picture of the kitchen counters….

I took these with permission of the people doing the sale. There are bags & bags of crochet thread, sewing thread, ribbon, etc. on these counters.

Now, this estate sale did not just include craft items. There were many boxes full of mason jars behind me as well as all kinds of kitchen supplies, pots & pans, dishes, etc. Dad bought a brand new programmable 12 cup Gevalia coffee pot for $30. It didn’t even have the seal broken!

The door to left you can just see in the picture above lead down to the craft/sewing room. I didn’t take a picture of the things to the right because there were people over there. You can see the back of the sewing table in the right of the photo, which is an old cutting table from a Wal-Mart. She bought them when our Wal-Mart did away with it’s fabric department.

There was so much to see in this sale it was a little overwhelming! It did make me think about what would happen to all my craft supplies when I’m gone. I don’t have nearly the amount that was in this house, but my “collection” is quite large. The family of this crafter seemed overwhelmed with the amount of things as well. I don’t think any of them shared their mother’s love of crafting. Definitely something to think about moving forward!

My Purchases

I tried to think about what I would actually use before buying things. It was very tempting to buy more than I needed, but then again what did I really “need”?

The first thing I saw when I walked in the door, as I said before, was a bin full of thread cones. I paid $50 for the whole bin because I knew there were more than 50 spools of thread in it. The final count was 129 cones of thread, which is about 39 cents per cone. There were 5 white cones that I won’t use because they are stained, but still an awesome deal!

Most of the thread is polyester, which is typical for serger thread. The smaller cones that are more round than cone shaped are a poly-cotton blend. I doubt I will ever use all of this thread, but at least I won’t run out!

Next we have a bundle of embroidery & quilting hoops….

I was very excited to find the large oval hoop because I’ve never seen one like that. Then I realized the darker small oval hoop was a Duchess! It still has a majority of the felt too, with just one small chip at the top of one side. I paid $10 for the bundle, which was an awesome price! The little photo bomber is RJ, a family friends dog my parents were watching.

I spotted this Conair steam press when I was checking out. Got it for 25 bucks! It does have one area on the cord that looks like a dog was chewing on it, but it works.

Next we have a bundle of sewing & quilting rulers. I paid $5.25 for this whole set of rulers! That Shape Cut on the bottom was separate from the rest & had a sticker for 25 cents on it. It’s brand new, still in plastic wrap! I’ve been wanting one, but waiting for a good deal. Guess I finally found the best deal ever!

The other rulers were $5 together, which is about 63 cents each. Yay! : D

More Stuff!

I found 6 wooden trays/bowls which I paid $5 for. The trays are made of monkey pod wood, but I’m not sure about the bowls. I find these all the time for about $1 a piece. They’re great for DIY projects & I used one I found a while back in my jewelry box makeover.

I also grabbed this unopened paper making mold & deckle for $2. It’s even got some dried flowers to add into the paper!

This last find I really only wanted for one of the trays in it. I didn’t want to just buy one tray and leave a perfectly good organizer without a tray. She told me I could have the whole thing for $25, so I bought it!

This tray here is totally worth more than the $25 I paid! There’s universal, leather, quilting, stretch, microtex, topstitch, etc. needles in this tray. I also found several double stitch needles & two packs of Janome needles in here. The Janome needles are not something I can use, but I’m sure one of the sewists I know on the internet could use them! All those embroidery needles will be helpful for thread sketching.

Here’s what was in the other trays – embroidery thread…

Woodsies, little thin wooden shapes & in the pill bottle at the upper right little bits of broken jewelry…

And sew on beading, elastic thread, & a bunch of friendly plastic! I had some of that friendly plastic back in the 90s when it was so popular. It took me a minute to remember what it was!  Maybe it’s time for a crafty throw-back project….what do y’all think??

That’s my haul! No, I didn’t buy any of the yarn you see in the first pictures. It was mostly novelty yarn & not something I was really interested in. Mom did buy one big comforter bag full of Red Heart yarn for $10, but that was for my aunt that crochets. I’m planning on heading back this weekend to see what’s left. They said they would be there every Saturday until it was gone.

The biggest thing I took away from this is – use your stash! No one will ever love it as much as you do & your family would rather have the things you make than the things you make with. : )