Craft, Thrift, or Die: Crewel Embroideries: Greatest Hits Volume 1

I decided I want to keep a record of my fabulous finds of yarn art. It occurred to me that I could have a colorful, kitschy gallery of gorgeous had I kept my crewels instead of selling them for money.
As of lately, these are my current "thing." You know, the thing I'm obsessed with at the moment. I've been very lucky! Here is a little retrospective from my first six years as a vintage seller.
Thing is, a lot of these are older pictures that I just saved from my Etsy account. I recently switched computers and haven't transferred many files over. I probably should have because some of these pics are potato quality.

I kept this big beautiful willow tree. ($5!) It's still hanging in that same spot.
I think I'll try and separate up this mass of pics into themes. I guess I'll start with larger sized ones. Here are some other big crewel wall hangings.

So awesome! The sun with a face really sold this one for me. One of my favorites and it was sold along with some other stuff as a prop for a Netflix show.

It's not exactly huge, but seem to remember it being...not small.

I found this biggie at my local thrift, OutFITers and after listing it sold immediately. Then I regretted it. I really should've kept this one.

This beautiful forest was actually found at the bins! The Goodwill Outlet, where people throw and grab aggressively. I just looked over and saw this standing up among other items in a bin that no one was looking at. I quickly ran to it, assuming the worst but much to my surprise it had no damage! A god damn miracle!

This one wasn't exactly huge either, but I remember it hung around for a good while. I feel like I usually sell southwestern themed stuff pretty well, so I was annoyed that I had to mark it down.

This is one from the string of autumn color crewels I had for a while. When I go into my local Savers the first thing I look at is the wall hanging wall. I soon found this one and noticed its cool 3D flowers. It was found along side this little one:

This next one is a favorite.

A short time later, I was looking in the exact same spot at Savers when I spotted this. For real, my jaw dropped. This big pink masterpiece was incredible! It sold within 24 hours of listing.

Here's a closeup.

I had a similar experience with this one. I was in OutFITers when I glanced over and saw this leaning against a bookshelf with a shopper precariously close by. I made a dash for this thing before someone had the chance to knock it over or put it in their cart.

This one is like the Cadillac of crewel art. It's big, unique, and expertly done. The frame is professionally done, heavy and high quality!
I mentioned earlier that I had a run of good luck with Autumn flowers. Let's transition to embroideries made of brown, orange, rust, avocado, and harvest gold...
But first this one:

Here's the story. Over the summer, I thrift like maniac. I was on my way back from a trip to a Savers and Goodwill a few cities over. Apparently, I hadn't had enough because I stopped into OutFITers on my way home.
One of the employees approached, "Hey, you look at wall art a lot, right?" Once confirming, I was led into the backroom and shown a large canvas cart of wall hangings. They had just come in and hadn't even been priced yet. I excitedly looked through the treasures, where I immediately spotted that one with all the plants and the wood stand.
Score! A framed crewel! "Definitely want it!" I said, greedily. Then I found this:

Like the first one it was made by "A.J. Stanley." Then I found this one:

Thanks, A.J.! I told the woman I would take all three and thanked her for sharing these treasures with me. She pulled out a price gun and said she would ticket them. $3 each. Three professionally framed, hand embroidered artworks for a total of $9.
At some point afterwards, I actually found another one just like the blue/orange/brown flowers in a basket.
Also, this one.

This one fits both themes; it's seasonal and it's large. I believe that was a Goodwill find where a week later I also found...

Fishing supplies. I don't love the subject, but great execution!

Oof. Not a great picture, but I can assure you these owls on a branch with an orange background was great quality! I can say that about this next picture too!

They're pillows!

Look at that little cutie. I don't know whether the quote is suggesting that the chipmunk listen for the earth's music, or that the chipmunk is going to sing for us. I'm not a huge fan of their music; their voices are way too high pitched. (Get it?)
This charming cottage looks autumn-y.