Tuesday 22 January 2008

Lunchtime op-break

In the interests of “research”, I looked up two local oppies from Amelia’s fab list, and decided to spend my lunchtime scavenging.
The first oppy I went to was St. Vinnie’s in Seaford, it’s tucked away in a suburban shopping strip, and is quite dinky. Their speciality seems to be clothes, and maybe books. There wasn’t much in the way of nice old china or homewares (which are my favourites.) However the prices were dirt cheap and the little craft rack yielded all this:


Which added up to $2.50, but the nice woman behind the counter let me have it for $2.40 as that was all the change I had in my wallet. I was stoked to find a Semco traced doiley – barely worked and with holes for crochet edging which I might have a go at doing. Also there was the folder and first volume of ‘Discovering Needlework’ which was a weekly “how to” magazine, with transfers, a free kit, and lots of ideas. I used to have almost the whole set of these, 5 or 6 folders worth, and in the early 90’s, picking this up in the newsagency got me keen on stitching again. (By the way, if any of you Melbournians picked up 5 or 6 folders from the op-shop, with the transfers and kits mostly used, yep, they were mine. I foolishly turfed them back in 2003.)
So all in all, I was pleased with my scores there. I grabbed the zipper basically because I liked the packaging, and the slogan on the side “disaster-proof”! Ah yes, I’ve had a zipper disaster involving a vintage burgundy velvet dress and going to a gig at The Old Greek Theatre. Should’a had one of these.

Now on the other hand, the Seaford Brotherhood shop was somewhat disappointing. Just around the corner from the Nepean Hwy and the Seaford shops, it’s a reasonable size, but again, mostly clothes (oh and a nice collection of dodgy LP’s). At the moment I’m not really buying clothes due to my giant arse issues, so I can’t really say if there was any gold there. But it was quite busy, there were about 5 or 6 women under the age of 40 seriously looking for new threads. I don’t know if this is a good or bad thing – that is, they could be either buying all the “good stuff” or because my definition of “good stuff” differs from most of the population, they might be leaving things I like such as old 60’s frocks and 50’s coats behind, so that would be great. Anyway, I promise next time I pop up that way, I’ll have a good fossick and re-evaluate.

3 comments:

fi said...

i love your comments on your 'huge arse issues'!i hear ya sister!!lov the rick rack and the zipper if only that was a promise of no disasters i could do with some of those!!

MildlyCrafty said...

ha ha, I don't buy clothes at op shops for the same reason :)

I went to the Warrandyte op shop on Sunday and bought a box of vintage wooden cotton reels (most of them hardly used, some not at all) for $14 (they were selling for $1 each but I asked how much for the lot, there were about 100 in the box!!) and 4 200g skeins of 2 ply wool from Bendigo Woolen Mills for $5 each. I had to snap them up fast as another woman came in and started rifling though the craft supplies and I was afraid she'd get the good stuff before me!

Drewzel said...

You know Amy, the other week at Savers I almost trampled a Granny to get to the knitting stuff first! She was more determined than me though...feisty old love she was! (Alas, there was nothing good there anyway.)