Busy two days.

Yesterday and today I have had some spare time, so I used it the best way possible and did some more opshopping! Yesterday ended in a small catastrophe. I had been to the Salvos at 403 High Street Ashburton (just near Warrigal Road) for the first time and was very impressed with the shop, the stock and the staff. I found a willow pattern teapot in perfect condition for $10 and snapped it up along with three cute ties (more about them later). The lady wrapped up my teapot in loads of newspaper and put it in a plastic bag. When I got home, I was in a hurry to get to the loo, and so I got out of the car, grabbed my bags and headed out of the garage....CRASH! I'd picked up the plastic bag at the wrong end and the teapot fell out. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHH!!!


Today was a very good day. I started at Vinnies in High Street Ashwood (the other end of High Street, which incidentally is one of the best roads in Melbourne for opshops). There, I bought a lovely teal coloured two piece outfit for $12, and some craft bits and pieces for $3.50. (this photo also includes clothes from the last store I went to).


(this photo also includes the laces I bought at my last stop).

Then I trundled over to Savers at Greensborough and bought 3 wire baskets for my stash $11, two blouses $15, a vest $7, a pair of slacks $8, and a wooden stirrer spoon for a friend $6. I got 10% discount off all that though, through my Savers card.




On the way home from Greensborough I stopped at another Vinnies shop in Montmorency. This is a great shop - very spacious and lots of goodies.
I found some more lace - $3, two cute ties for $1 each, a red vest $3, a pair of off-white track pants $5, and two cushion inserts for $1 each (the cushions on our couch are flat as a tack)




Now I'm broke until my pension hits the bank!

Jigsaw puzzles anyone!!!!!

Murrumbeena Lions Op Shop have a lot of Jigsaw puzzles at the moment if you are in to them.
Also trying to find the person who said their friend was taking some stuff to Camberwell market last weekend to sell on stall 58. I couldn''t make it there so I wanted to know if there was any stuff left over. Please leave me a message on my blog.
Also the Lions Op Shop has a great selection of books, in the little shop they have next door they have lots of Shakespeare Plays, some photography books, advertising texts, always interesting browsing. Also anyone who's into Retro should check out the auction at The Collector Auction House this Thursday starting at 6:00pm. (www.thecollector.com.au)'. Not really Op shop action but of interest to retro addicts.
I have now taken The Posh Opp Shop of my list of stores to visit. Prices are unbeliveable and unfortunately the staff are well...rude. No such thing as a friendly chat like you get at most Op shops. Perhaps they just dont like the look of me but I dont think thats it.
Have fun opping. (In Australia we Op)

Recycled yarn

Before: imagine this op shop jumper is twins - I bought two of them for $1 each in Oakleigh Salvos. Abercrombie & Fitch, womens size large (perhaps that's why they were in the op shop - this looks like a small to me!) with bonus gorilla arms, 40% lambswool/30% nylon/27% acrylic/3% polyester.

After: this is one of the jumpers deconstructed into its constituent yarn, and partly reconstructed into a pair of Bloke socks. There are little navy blue squiggles of yarn throughout the house, turning up in the cat's food bowl, and even one or two magically transported into the backyard, byproducts of the unravelling process. Undoing a jumper is strangely satisfying, both in a destructive and constructive way: watching the progress of frogging versus the steady growth of the new balls of yarn. By the time I undo the second jumper I will have a surfeit of navy blue.

Let's take a little gaze into my crystal ball...ah, the mist is clearing...I see...navy blue knitting...socks for me, handwarmers, maybe a beanie...lots and lots of navy blue knitting!

Doncare Op Shops.

I spent this afternoon re-visiting some op shops in my area that I hadn't been to for a while. One of them had a stack of brochures on the counter, titled "The Op Shop Trail", so I picked one up to bring home. What a super idea!! I wonder why other charities with a chain of opshops don't do this?

In this case, the charity is Doncare, and they have five excellent opshops, which you can see online at their web page here. The pictures show the outside as well as inside of each shop, so if you go looking for them you'll have an idea of what you are looking for. By the way, the shops are run mostly by dear old ladies who don't want to rip anybody off, so they tend to undercharge rather than overcharge. I added my items up myself before I approached the counter, and in both shops, the total was less than what I figured. Rather than correct them and make them feel stupid, I handed them a single note which was higher than what they quoted me, and said "Keep the change", and they thought that was nice! Here is my stash:
Heap of lovely old stitching magazines.

Bundles of laces to use for crafty stuff.

I have several embroidery hoops, but smaller and larger than this, so this one is a valuable addition to my collection.

I guess most people would wonder why I looked twice at this handkie, but it is a beautiful example of 'shadow work', a type of embroidery.

The rest of these are doilies, all with exquisite stitching. I've added a closeup picture of the centrepiece with fuschias, as it really is a show piece.







Sorry if I've bored some of you with my doilies, but I've linked my post with one of my other blogs, so that my fellow stitchers can come across and have a look.

Lunchtime op shop finds in Windsor, VIC

3 teatowels (two English one Australian)

Cute spotty pyrex glass bowl

Belt making notions

On line oppy

Not sure if this qualifies as an op shop buy, but I saw a link on a blog to the Brotherhood's online secondhand books site so I went on for a browse. I ended up buying Constance Howard's classic embroidery book in absolute mint condition for $3 (but then $7.50 postage). Still a great buy even with the postage as it's listed on other sites for $20 and more. This post won't let me add a link (http://brotherhoodbooks.org.au/browse) so here it is.

Yours Now Mine

Looks like this weekend in Melbourne is going to be a rainy one. Ah.. winter is upon us my friends. So to cheer us all up, here’s another Op Shop for our lists! Checking this place out could be a lovely, rainy day activity for Saturday!

Yours Now Mine has been running for the past 10 years and is run by the Scalabrini Brothers, who use profits to look after the elderly.

From these pics they look stocked up with shoes, handbags, bric-a-brac, kitchenware, machester, prints and paintings, jewellery and books. They also sell European and local brand named clothing.

Opening Hours

Monday - Friday: 10am - 4pm
Saturday: 10am - 1pm

321 Doncaster Road, Greythorn Victoria 3104

The inside scoop for checking this place out on Saturday is that because they need to put new stock out and tidy up, volunteers are still there until about 2.30pm.

Much more at my site :) www.adelle.com.au . Come and say hello!