Pickle Crisp does work against you when doing sweet pickles with sugar added to the brine. Because Linda Lou's recipe uses a salt brine to essentially remove a lot of the water from the cukes, it leaves them open for the penetration of the vinegar and sugar. With the addition of the calcium chloride of Pickle Crisp, it will tend to break down the cukes a little and have a negative effect on crispness. Because the fermented salt brine method to making these unusual sweet pickles makes the cukes a bit less watery by its nature, they do act a little different when they are stored in sugar and vinegar. I don't think it would be the same if they were not sweetened with regular sugar, or if Splenda or some other artifical sweetener was used instead of sugar. My 32 ounce jar of bulk Calcium Chloride is almost 1/4 gone already. I use it ONLY for my dills, sweets without sugar, and my pepperoncini pickled peppers in full strength vinegar and salt. The pickling cukes actually suffer in taste and texture if you peel them, even for a fresh salad. Its not necessary for most any pickling cuke to be peeled. As to bitterness, it cannot be bred out of the cucumbers, no matter what they say about bitterless or burpless varieties. Usually it occurs early in the season when there are only a few flowers and the plant is not big yet. Once the cukes get into the summer growing season, they tend to be much more reliable and you will be hard pressed to find a bitter one then. Even for that, when I am picking early ones, I try to taste each cuke with a small slice near the stem end to see if it has any bitterness. If so, its tossed. There is nothing worse to throw off a nice jar of pickles if you come across a single slice (or slices) of a bitter cuke. No amount of vinegar, salt, sugar, or spices will hide its awful taste. I have had my share of bitter ones, and most have been from seeds that said they had no bitters.

Maybe I'm reading the post wrong, but I have a different viewpoint than nymommy's. We use CL to sell items and always get what what we feel is the true value of the item, based on its age and wear. Sure, it may not sell within a week, but over time the right buyer will always show up. I sold my backpack blower last summer and got at least 4 emails from guys telling me they'd offer much less than I was asking and to contact them when it didn't sell. Well, 3 days later I sold it for my asking price and the buyer didn't even make an offer since he knew he was getting a bargain. Whether you're asking $600 or $60 for a piece doesn't matter since the buyer still has to arrange transport. That's just part of CL and if a buyer can't arrange pick up then that leaves them with buying from a store front. It's easy to rent a truck from HD , borrow a truck from a friend, pay someone that hauls and occasionally, the seller will deliver for a fee. So, one can usually figure out a way to get an item to their house. Ok.......I'm off the CL box now. Don't know what got me started!

Wallee, that is such a coincidence! Do you think it would be doable for slipcovers or would it be too thick to sew easily? We do have one of their stores here. It's one of the few fabric stores we have left and I used to frequent it often, but again with working full-time, it's easier to do my fabric drooling online. It would be pretty sad if I've gone to all this trouble and it was laying on a shelf 15 minutes from where I'm sitting. I'm dead centre Canada. I don't suppose you're nearby? Thanks for taking the time to join and share the info.

Good advice ...I never thought of having them appraised, thanks Marsha. Beverly, more good advice, but those who may have known are gone. There's a cousin or two on my DH side, I may try to track 'em down. Yes...I do feel fortunate to have found these gems. They are in remarkable condition, although one, not in the picture, has lost the quilting threads, but the thread impressions are still very evident! Binding is frayed in spots, and a few lite yellow spots...but that's all! It was special for me to share these with others who appreciate "these old quilts" To think we almost took those 11 trunks to the dump.....yikes V.