Value Village for the Win!

Recently, Spruce Grove opened up a new Value Village.  It's big and exciting news for someone who loves a good bargain!  Often, when we go into town, we'll pop into "VV" to take a quick look around.  I'm a sucker for any sort of embroidered linens, antiques, or housewares.  I have my couple of items I always look for - quilts, hand painted barn pictures, aprons and antique crockery. 

The older I get, the more I place value on items that are either handmade, or have stood the test of time. For example, I have a hard time saying no to vintage tea towels and aprons.  I know how long it takes me to embroider one simple tea towel.  How many hours do you think it to someone to embroider these?  And on flour sacks, none the less.... how do you not take these home?

How I appreciate that the well loved items of yesteryear were actually cherished.  And reused, often times again and again.  It's so different from our culture today, isn't it?  Lately, The girls and I have loved looking for handmade wool sweaters.  Again, the time that was spent on these projects.... and I don't know how to knit, so I really do appreciate a beautifully knit sweater.  Throw in the fact that it's wool, and that baby is coming home with me!  Wool is so incredibly warm, we wear these sweaters for everything through the winter.  Here's my "choring sweater", which I found a couple of weeks ago... Incidentally, it's really, really great to have someone in your life who knows how to knit, because this beauty had a couple of small holes, but my SIL was able to fix them up fairly easily for me. 

Again, because I know how much time and energy goes into making a quilt, I rarely turn up any quilts.  And I really do love those old school polyester quilts, because you cannot wreck those things.  I've bought a few over the years, but this one takes the cake!  It's bright and beautiful and stays in my truck for when we need to spread out a blanket to sit on.  Or in case we ever get stuck in the snow.  My girls really don't love this quilt, but I think it's so bright and cheery.  And no one will ever steal it!

My "commitment to thrifting", as a friend likes to call it, has wielded me some pretty exciting deals, so I'd rather think of this activity as an "investment for my retirement".  I keep telling the girls that the junk valuables I buy from VV are actually items of worth, and that when I die they'll be able to sell them.  For example:  I bought this pretty sweet Hudson Bay Point Blanket.  It's an iconic Canadian keepsake! (And don't worry - I took it directly from the store to the dry cleaners!)

And then, I found a few more points blankets, all in great shape, all keepsakes, and all dry cleaned!

I also got Abby started on a little collection of her own.... enamelware.  She's even picked up several more pieces since this picture was taken.  She tells me that when she moves out, that's all she's going to use.... we'll see about that!

The most exciting find, I think, to date, has been a beautiful vintage, hand sewn, honeycomb quilt. 

The quilt was unfinished, and needed a bit of tweaking to make it back into a rectangle.  It pains me to think of the amount of hours someone spent making this quilt, and I've decided to finish the quilt myself.  I justified the cost of finishing the quilt by the fact that I bought the top for a mere $5...

I'm having it professionally quilted, since doing so myself, on this size and shape of a quilt is beyond my skill level, and I'm so excited to see it once it's finished!

I suppose I've realized that I really do love the thrill of the hunt when I'm thrifting.  You never know what you're going to find when you walk through those doors, and for a relatively small investment (I don't think I've paid more than $20 for anything I've ever bought from VV), it's a fun little hobby.