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Good Day At The Booksale
5:28 p.m. - 2008-06-07


I had a lucky morning at the library booksales. The big sale started at 9:30, but the little sale in the nearby town starts at 9:00 (held every two weeks) so I went there first. I found a 1954 Singer Sewing Book and a few cookbooks, so I went on to the big sale. A local quilter must have donated a lot of her stash to the sale because there were a lot of rabid ladies all around the craft book table which is rare. I was not interested in the quilting books so I dodged the ladies and looked for sewing and knitting books. I first found a Vogue Knitting magazine from 1939 (!!) a really lucky find, then the 1967 Japanese volume on pattern drafting (which recently went for $80 on an ebay auction) which I had been wanting, and a bunch of other rare sewing books. Lots were in soft cover so only 25 cents or 50 cents apiece! I love the booksales, you can spend less than $10 and come home with an armful of treasures!

After a quick trip home to unload the books and clean out the car, I was on the road again to pick the spouse up at the office. From there we drove to Oakland Airport to pick Melissa up from the airport. She apparently had a wonderful time visiting her friends in Texas and managed to bring home lots of pictures and yarn. It was a lovely day in Oakland, very mild and breezy. It is hotter out here in the interior valley, but not too bad.

I finished the embroidery for the second Mexican Peasant Blouse and now have to sew the thing together. I also want to sew myself some new aprons and have been looking for the Cindy Taylor Oates book on Retro Aprons, and I finally found it and another of her books on sewing backpacks at the Cotton Patch in Lafayette. I have been looking at pictures of vintage apron patterns and now have a binder full of pictures to give me ideas. Aprons are pretty simple to design so I can take one of the patterns I do have and change it around to be one of the vintage ones I wish I had. A girl can't have too many aprons, especially an uncoordinated messy girl like me.

The price of gas is so high now that we can't run around doing fun shopping like we (I mean 'I') used to. Once the allergy season is over I plan to walk to the store a lot, so I need to find some sort of box or bag to fit into the stoller to carry the food. I don't like pulling one of those grocery cart thingies, but the stroller is just the right height and besides, I am used to it. I should sew a sturdy tote to fit into the stroller seat so the groceries won't slide out through the leg holes.

Looks like we are in for a drought year, but at least our county is not having rationing yet, only the northern county which relies on a reservoir (rainfed). Our water comes from the Delta (Sacramento River, snowfed and rainfed). Bad droughts are a lot of work. I remember doing wash, taking the clothes out sopping wet from the wash cycle and trashing my own clothes in the process, washing more clothes in the same water (repeat several times), then doing the same with the rinse water. It seems strange that during a drought you should spend so much time getting yourself drenched in water to save water. Also, you can say a fond farewell to your landscaping.

There seem to be a lot of flies around this year. I have three Rescue Fly Traps hanging in the backyard and I would say that I have caught thousands and thousands of them, and still there are more. Of course, maybe the traps are just attracting the entire fly population of the county to my yard.

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