After the Battleground roller derby event last Sunday, TG decided I needed a “derby shirt”. One Wednesday we decided to hit some of the resale shops ITL to find a good starting point. It ended up being a tour of many stores we (mostly) hadn’t been to.

Many resale shops in Houston are run by volunteers for charities. As such, they’re only open when the volunteers are available, which seems to be 10am – 3pm. So, many of these stores you need to hit mid-day. We visited eight resale shops:

1. Blue Bird Circle Resale Shop, 615 W. Alabama, 77006 – they had some furniture items that we liked but didn’t spend on, and I bought several hundred Magic the Gathering cards for $1, no shirts jumped off the shelves at us.
2. Charity Guild Shop, 2009 Dunlavy, 77006 – you can consign items here, the only shirt we found that i liked was one similar to another i already have, a yellow “fishing shirt” with nice vents and lots of pockets, it was a few bucks, so I got another.
3. Second to None Resale Shop, 1435 Westheimer, 77006 – right on the bend of Westheimer, there are signs that the building will be available in 2008, so either they are moving or closing. It’s run by the Houston Area Women’s Center, so I suspect it’s just moving. I got a nice light white fabric shirt with a few holes, but an ideal summer shirt. TG got some cheap and odd coffee mugs for the Continental Club.
4. Assistance League of Houston, 1902 Commonwealth, 77006 – if you ever drive Waugh, you pass it all the time, this store verges on the smallish and is mostly for women, TG got a $1 hat there, i got three shirts, but none exactly what we were looking for.
5. Legacy Resale Outlet, 1232 Westheimer, 77006 – in the same center as Erotic Cabaret, we noticed this brand new store as we were driving about. They have a minimal selection, but had some nice stuff. Apparently run by Legacy Community Health Services. I had the impression that there was an estate of a deceased AIDS victim in there, and that would explain it. We didn’t buy anything. “Come back, we get new stuff every day.”
6. Heights Common Market, 1802 Yale, 77008 – an old school dump in the Heights, I hadn’t been in in a few years, no interesting clothing, but a lot of interesting browsing. TG got a gold belt buckle that said “G” and some ear rings.
7. Sand Dollar Thrift Store, 1903 Yale, 77008 – a dump with an odd smell, but with super cheap prices. We were there on “first Wednesday of the month half price day”, which is also “you can’t try anything on” day. TG found some cheap skirts that she didn’t want to buy without trying, but they were so cheap she did anyway. I found four super cheap shirts (half of $1.40 in some cases) and one 10 year old Norway travel book.
8. Family Thrift Center, 920 Durham, 77008 – the opposite of Sand Dollar: not super cheap (items were $4 – $10), but a nicely kept store. They had such a large selection, it was hard to thumb through them (items were packed onto the racks), and everything was a very nice quality. We hit the jackpot here (but for a few more dollars) and found two shirt that were good starting points for TG’s work. I bought two others, as well. They had a prerecorded “no running or playing” tape that ran while we were there . . . and there were kids running and playing.

After that dynamic tour of the shops, we still needed to visit Joann’s and Michael’s to get the items to adulterate the shirts with. The first shirt is complete, and received positive reviews from Emma, Jay, and David last night.