Garage sale bargains

Went to several garage sales Friday morning--it couldn't have been a prettier morning! Dropped my daughter at preschool, met my parents at a local subdivision that was having their annual area-wide garage sale and found some *great* stuff! My son was with us and also had fun rummaging up a couple new toys and some new videos. My chicken friend here was a 50 cent addition to the ever-growing collection of ceramic poultry in my kitchen! My best find was probably this antique tin:

It is a candy tin with a picture of the Queen Mary on the front. On the side of the tin is this cute little logo:And the really cool part is what was on the inside!An assortment of wool threads (most from England) and a wonderful black lacquer darning egg!! All this for $1!! I'm guessing it must be from the 40's or 50's--one of the candy ingredients listed on the tin was "treacle." I can't say I've ever seen that listed as an ingredient on anything before.

I also got a gorgeous turquoise blue Venetian glass bowl (Balboa) from Italy for 25 cents (!) and an art glass paperweight by Anton Intaglio, also for the low low price of 25 cents! It must have been my day to find outrageous good stuff for next to nothing--we all really had fun.

In quilty news, I am happy to report that the entire center section (all the houses, sashing, and cornerstones) of my Willow Tree Hill quilt is pieced together!! The blocks that have been on the design wall for over two years are down!! I'll add the borders next and will post pics of the finished top as soon as its done. One of the borders is going to be a little dog tooth border--a fitting tribute since this quilt's subtitle is "A House Just Isn't a Home without a Dog." The half-square triangles will have a finished size of 1 inch square, so I'll be making a lot of them--am planning to use the triangles on a roll paper to make them. I am just crazy about this quilt. It is really special to me and I am so very happy that it is finally progressing toward completion.