clearance

adjust your set, a photo by dropstitch on Flickr.

In one of my recent clear-outs, I decided to part with a couple of these experimental test card girl embroideries.  I made these on my sewing machine about 2.5 years ago as a precursor to the more colourful and hand-stitched version now available in my shop here.  I never wanted to try to sell these early attempts, but I didn't want to throw them out either.  I also didn't want to try to give them away on my blog for fear nobody would want them and I'd be left red-faced!  So a couple of weeks ago I added them to one of my many bags of random items to take to the charity shop.  (I have been sending a lot of stuff to the charity shop over the last year, but that probably deserves a whole post of its own.  God, where do I come up with such thrilling blog topics?!  Sheesh!)  Anyway, since taking them to the charity shop I have been twinging with regret and a little bit of panic.  I know they'll have a tiny price tag on them (if they even make it as far as the shelf) and I feel like I'll be blushing and anxious every time I go into the shop, which is often, wondering if I'll see them and if they'll sit there unwanted for months on end.  I've been thinking about this so much that recently I made the decision that I would buy them back if I ever did see them on the charity shop's shelves.

That was until I read this post over on My Paper Crane.  Heidi had donated an unwanted hand-drawn plate to her local charity shop (or thrift store as she would call it!) in Pennsylvania.  After seeing it sitting on the shelf with a 25c price tag one time too many, she decided to buy the plate back and bin it... only to discover next time she went in that the plate was gone.  Unsure whether it had been purchased or thrown away, Heidi forgot all about it until she received an excited email from a lucky My Paper Crane fan who had found and purchased the plate (a Heidi Kenney original!) at a flea market in Ohio.  How it got to an Ohio flea market is anyone's guess, but how wonderful that it did!  

Now I've decided to let fate deal with my embroideries.  I think they have my labels on the back of them so maybe one day I'll hear from someone who found them somewhere.  Or maybe I'll randomly become famous and the embroideries will be marked up from 10p to £10,000 and make a fortune for the British Heart Foundation.  That would be good.  Or maybe they've already made their way into a skip...