A beautiful day for a Goodwill experience

For the forth time I found myself at a Goodwill Market place. This is visit #2 for the Marketplace in Santa Ana, Ca. What an operation. Today I was a picker picking for someone else - sort of like a Pro Picker. Pam is/was looking for a particular type of sweater material for her latest collection. She will deconstruct, construct and over dye. She is putting together a collection for a spring fashion show.

We found sweaters for her a a couple of things for me. But the true adventure was learning about the process. Orange County/Santa Ana operation is way way bigger than the one in Long Beach. There are trucks and bins and boxes everywhere. The live auction was in full swing. Auctions are in Spanish unless someone needs it in English, so we grasped only parts of the operation.

A person wins a "lot". That merchandise is gone through and either - packed up to take somewhere, sorted and boxed and stacked or bagged. It all goes away, every day.


Apparently the merchandise is either headed for Mexico, a swap meet or a container.
The guy I talked to indicated that these white bags, full of stuff, were headed to a container and would be going over seas. Seems sales of used US merchandise is big in other places.

Amazing!!!

And I cannot believe I like going to the picker lot and just finding stuff. It limits your pallet, you find what you find. Somehow liberating - who knew?

In my real world I have just finished a quilt - "Life happens in the space between". I am entering this quilt into a juried competition so am not showing the completed quilt, today. The fabrics for this quilt all came from Goodwill.
Blues/greens/ male fabrics from Goodwill Store in Huntington Beach
Red/pinks/ mom type fabrics from Goodwill Marketplace in Santa Ana

I contend I have rescued these fabrics. Who knows their fate. Today there was a sweater from "Free People". It was a small petite so I had no reason to buy, but I do wonder what adventure this sweater will have.

And then, Pam and I went for lunch. Probably the best fish tacos I have ever had.
This is the view of our table but sadly does not include the man across the isle who had catfish in garlic sauce. It was a live catfish when he ordered it and he said it was fabulous.
Great day and thanks for listening,