What I love about Garage Sale-ing

The treasures you can find!  Especially the free ones!   Like a bag of sewing notions - if I ever buy a machine, I'll always fill a bag with loose notions & ask if they'll throw that in (they always do).   And the cabinet drawers of a vintage machine ~ veritable little treasure chests.  :)

I'm making the cute little Colette Sorbetto top (another freebie!) & I wanted to funk it up a bit with some buttons, & wondered if I might have some nice bias tape in my stash to use as well.

Yup - vintage freebie finds to the rescue!

There's an upside/downside to vintage button finds - often you find a delightfully unique & fabulous button...and there's only one.   The good thing is that creativity gets triggered in figuring out how to use it.  I'm thinking of combining these buttons, & that wonderful 100% cotton bias tape, on my animal print(!) blouse:

But THIS is what really caught my eye - on the back of that bias tape package is this:

Love love LOVE this phrase:  "we will reimburse you for the reasonable cost of your labor and all material used in making the article on which it is applied."  What are the odds of finding THAT guarantee on anything made today?

Here are a few more packages of tape from roughly the same ($.15 per package) era:

All cotton or rayon, & even different companies have that same guarantee!

Love the washing instructions on this one:

"Boil with pure soap or soap flakes.  Rinse in clear, luke-warm water, Iron before quite dry."

Many of these finds have no monetary value, and little value of any sort to anyone but us sewists, but they make the little cockles of my heart go pitter-patter when I sort out my bags & drawers of treasures after a day that is often filled with delightful chit-chat & sharing goodies & stories with other bargain hunters.  :)

What fabulous vintage sewing finds have you come up with in your estate sale wanderings?