speed quilting

twenty-four hours is all you need to make a quilt
(and supervise chores and knit a few rows and do some shopping and visit friends and cook dinner and read a chapter and grab some shuteye....)




presenting.....




the twenty-four hour quilt......
(complete with fluff that needs to be picked off but I'm oh-so-impatient about getting it onto the blog!)


Laying it on top of the Blue Quilt was probably not the most aesthetic thing to do, but I can't put it in the garden as it's raining! And I really *wanted* to lay it out on the dark brown bark...coz this is The Ghecko Quilt for The Ghecko Boy, who is turning five next week.


But I don't think it's *ever* going to stop raining, which takes me back to the impatient comment above.


TGQ is a leftover quilt: leftover ghecko material from the boys' shorts last summer, leftover cord from our lounge suite, leftover brown cotton from my pants, leftover checks and plain brown from the boys' jackets, lots of leftover suede (which never got made into what it was bought for - heehee) and a little cord that wasn't leftover, but *was* a bargain from the Sallies.

The back looks just as good as the front.....in spite of me throwing all caution to the wind and just picking up random pieces (Very Not Me, but it's how you Get It Done in 24hrs...and more importantly, Before The Birthday!)

God Bless the Sallies

What a find at the Sally Shop....
(BTW, last week it became apparent that some of my smaller kids think the Sally Shop is so-called, because they *sell* things)

$2 for a bag of Very Useful Bits and Bobs.

More specifically, a latch hook hooky thing (OK, so not too much more specific!).

Not one, but two, darning mushrooms. Just yesterday J12 had brought me ER's wooden stacky toy thingy and suggested the base of it would make a good darning mushroom if only it were smaller. Well, now we have one each - and one of them is even red with little white dots. (Who said all preteens are into playstation and Harry Potter?)

There are self-cover buttons....just last week J12 learnt how to use these and made herself three buttons for a vest so her beady wee eye spotted them pretty quickly in the bag.

But wait, there's more.
Zips, thread, bias binding, Metal Things and a very cool wooden and metal contraption,which will probably need an Engineering Mind to devise a use for (or at least explain to me the intended use....all I know is it's something to do with a bobbin).

I really shouldn't have.

No brand new purchases-this-year-n-all-that-jazz.

I needed a button for my Kaffe Fasset-inspired blue bag. It used to be an open bag,

but I'm using it all the time and it bugs me that things *could* fall out (never mind that the whole bag fell off my shoulder in the carpark ~ I would never have noticed except that a lovely big burly workman shouted out to bring the misadventure to my attention. Bless his woolly worksocks.)

Anyway, I had added a "top bit" in very funky wool....


....and just needed two buttons to make it a closed bag. One had to be not too big, because one of the buttonholes didn't really work (not sure what I did wrong), so it will remain The Permanently Closed Side. The other one needed to be enormous, coz the buttonhole was gigantic (not sure what went wrong there either). I'd raided my own stash and found a suitable Permanent Button and put on the biggest one I had as the other, but it was too small and the bag kept popping open.

So I checked the local op shop clothes for Big Buttons.
No joy.
In an effort to support local business rather than The Big Red Shed, I ventured to Knitworld and they had Just What I Needed.
What's more, it was only 70 cents.

But did I have even a dollar on me?
No, not me.
And I felt silly using my Eftpos card for 70c.
So I had a quick sneak around hoping to find a cheap ball of wool to use for my last Sock Knitalong pair (it would be a reward for finishing all the unfinished socks, y'know)

There was no cheap wool.
But there was this:


Real sock wool.
Not chunky.
Will require more than 36 stitches to make a sock;-)
And needles so tiny you could mistake them for toothpicks.
But at the end of it I will have a pair of REAL socks.
Actually I hope to have four pair, all different.
All the girls have some purple in their Trip Clothes so this wool will be perfect.

I'm keen to knit both socks at once to avoid Second Sock Syndrome and I was fortunate enough to realize that if I did that working from opposite ends of the one ball of wool, the pattern would turn out upside down on one sock. Hence the TWO balls.
And that should be enough for six small socks and hopefully the tops of the last two!

give us this day our daily bread

We have been through a many-week-stint of purchasing French sticks after church on Sundays.....so much so that it has reached Habit Status.
Why have we ended up doing this?
We started the year buying ABSOLUTELY NOTHING with hydrogenated oil (and if I wasn't sure, I just didn't buy it - I still don't know about French sticks, but my suspicions are......well, obviously they are merely suspicions, and certainly of less consequence than my principles!)
We make perfectly good bread ourselves. Much better even than store-bought-fluff-that-leaves-you-hungry-in-spite-of-eating-twice-as-much-as-usual.
And to top it all off, we end up coming home with a plastic bag which is really not good for anything other carrying French sticks in - and we all know what I think of that!
What is a girl to do about it?
a) stop buying French bread until all ingredients are identified
b) take plastic bag to church in anticipation of the spontaneous bakery-drive-by on the way home
c) buy two linen tea towels at an op shop while you're waiting for KnitWorld to open (I wouldn't have been early if the clock in the car hadn't been running six minutes fast, so you could say that it was the car's fault that I ended up in a situation that lent itself to making an unnecessary purchase - oh, where HAVE my principles gone?)....then you come home and turn them into French Stick Carrying Bags.

By the way, that's not French bread in the bag. That's perfectly good homemade sourdough bread. Do you want to know how to make it? It's easy-peasy. You just need flour, water, salt and a big dollop of patience. Good things take time.

Mix together two cups each of warm water and flour. Cover with a cloth and set aside somewhere warm until it's frothy (could take a few days or as little as a few hours, depending what organisms you've got floating round in the atmosphere....stirring it every day is a good idea if you can remember to)

Take out two cups of this gloop (which is also known as a starter by Expert Bread Makers...you'll see I call it gloop). Feed the rest of the gloop with a bit more water and flour and put it in the fridge if you're not going to want it for a few days (which you won't, because you've already taken some out to use now). When you're ready to make more bread you can omit this first step and just take your gloop container out of the fridge and join the recipe at this point. (But before I go on, let me tell you that from here on in it's really hard to go wrong. Your gloop will appreciate being fed a bit of flour and water every few days if you're not baking, but it's not absolutely essential. You might think it's getting temperamental if it develops a black layer on top - this is called hooch - really, truly, it is. But don't worry - there's nothing wrong with hooch - just stir it in to your gloop and away you go. In fact, you can stir your gloop whenever you think of it if you like.)

So you've got your two cups of gloop in a big bowl. Add two and a half cups of warm water and four cups of flour (I use organic ground-at-home whole wheat, but you can use what you've got) Leave it to go frothy (this is where the patience bit comes in). You can leave it anywhere from 8-24 hours without causing any damage; and you can stir it if you want to. When it's nice-n-bubbly, add a teaspoon of salt and another four cups (more or less, depending on the humidity and temperature and type of flour and which apron you're wearing) until the dough is not sticky. Knead for about ten minutes (or longer if you get distracted and realise you're pampering the dough rather than kneading it).
Put the dough in a greased bowl, cover with a damp cloth and let it rise in a warm place for a few hours - you'll have to be patient to wait for it to get at least fifty percent bigger than it was. Trust me, it will happen and it's nothing short of a miracle.
Split the dough into two loaves and pop them into greased bread tins (or I guess you could just plop them on an oven tray if you don't have tins).

But you're not ready to bake yet! I told you, you'd have to be patient! You need to wait for them to rise for another few hours (one would be a bare minimum......five would not be too long....I'm not sure about longer as I haven't waited any longer than that).

Preheat the oven to 200*C and bake for about 40 minutes (or a bit longer if it doesn't sound hollow when you tap the bottom of the loaf).

Once it's cooked, you still can't eat it though. You won't be able to cut it tidily for another hour.
But once you cut it and smother it with butter you'd better get that gloop container out of the fridge and start again, because these loaves are not going to last long!!!

I realise it sounds like a massive long drawn-out process, but really it's not. Yes, it takes a lot of time...but most of that time you can be weeding the garden, making preserves, darning your socks, cleaning the toilet, sleeping, reading War and Peace, visiting your friends, feeding the poor...oh yes, feeding....the bread.....it only takes about 15 minutes hands-on time, and that includes grinding the flour. Give it a go!

PS this is the point in my blog-life that I realise I am actually writing TO you...it has turned FROM me putting my ideas into a plastic box TO a conversation with you (well, with those of you who comment and talk to me in real life and email me). I guess you're the ones I feel I'm writing to - there are plenty of lurkers according to my Stat Counter, and I suppose I'm writing to you too, just I don't know who you are!

Friday Favourites #6

piles of stuff *to go*

empty spaces where stuff *was*

lack of clutter

I am freeing us from the grips of STUFF

another hour and the room will be minimalist again

favourite

Friday

of clothes and comfort

I've been enjoying reading Kelsey's blog * Where Am I Wearing? * over the past couple of weeks. He's an American travelling the globe in a quest to find out about the places where his clothes are made. This post in particular was a goodie. What you buy and who you buy it from and how much you pay is certainly not simple.

But the more I find out about fair trade, the more I realise it can make a difference.

That's one of the reasons I have started making our clothes. Especially if I can refashion something found at a thrift store or use second-hand material. Sometimes things are perfect just the way they are in the store - like T3's gorgeous little crocheted-with-lots-of-love-I'm-sure vest.

When I am making things myself, I am much more aware of the amount of effort that goes into them and I am more likely to choose fewer items that work well together than fall into the trap of buying lots of things because they are cheap.

Then.....because I am buying less, and if possible getting it second-hand, I have more money to be able to go to Trade Aid and other such stores and make purchases based on justice rather than the dollar - the K-Mart equivalent may be cheaper, but it is less likely to be ethical.

And doesn't she look just as happy as if she was wearing a brand new exclusive designer piece?

And it's not just me on this soapbox! Father Bear brought home some Oxfam and Trade Aid Literature yesterday. Here are some quotes:

* Half the world's population (2.8 billion) live on less than US$2 a day. 1.1 billion live on less than US$1 a day.

* Poor countries account for 0.4% of global trade. Their share has halved since 1980.

* If Africa, East Asia, South Asia and Latin America each increased their share of world exports by just 1%, the gains could lift 128 million people out of poverty.

* If these regions increased their share of world exports by 5%, they would generate US$350 billion - seven times as much as they receive in aid.

Something's not quite right. Are we in the developed world willing to forgo some comforts to see justice come to the rest of the world?

ANZAC Day

PHOTOS ADDED BELOW

Today's post should really be a thoughtful number about freedom and history and the red poppy we received in exchange for a donation! Or at least a foodie post with an Anzac Bikkie recipe.

But that will have to wait till next year.

Coz today Dadda was home (yay for public holidays) and watched the kiddos for a good part of the day while I got through the whole mending pile and finished knitting a cute wee hat. On my next DAY OUT in a couple of weeks I'll drag the sewing machine to father-in-law's place and sew the four pairs of trousers, three sweatshirts and one vest that I still need to do. If by some miracle I get them done before then, I don't know what I'll do on *my day* ;-)



This past summer the kids have all shot up, but not out so their clothes from last winter were plenty wide enough - just too short.

Not any more. One of J11's sweatshirts was put to good use patching and lengthening jeans lengthening a couple of sweatshirts aswell. Dadda's not too sure about the look, but M4 loves them!

J11's *new* old shirt:

K8 grew taller and skinnier too - a pinafore Grandma bought her will be able to do another winter with its extra layer on the bottom.

We had fun "beebeemod-ing" it too, though in a much more restrained way than beebeemod does her bright funky designs.
K8 chose the beads (I wanted to use some that matched!!).

The inspiration came from the buttons on the back:

And once all the kids' gear was done I did a little shortening of some trousers for me. Only I couldn't stop at just taking them up. I had portabellopixie visions in my head and decided they're not just good for toddlers! I was also thinking about something I read on Nikki's blog last week...she said, "Wow, to actually be myself and not feel afraid, or hesitant, or weird, or whatever. It's not even about *not caring* what others think, but just having a knowing that I am OK as I am."
For me and this pair of pants it translated to: it's not that I don't care what others think (coz deep down we all want to be liked if we're really honest), but that *I* like them, so I can wear them whether they are "fashionable" or not (they're not *insert big wide grin* ).
And I don't need to worry that everyone will think I'm having a mid-life crisis just coz I wear something that they haven't seen before *insert even bigger grin*

how organised is this?

All my RL friends will be rolling their eyes and saying "That is so Rach"....but I'm going to put it on here anyway! Even though I have always bought whatever clothing we need a year ahead in the end-of-season sales, I've never been quite *this* organised before;-)


A few weeks ago I had sorted the winter clothes, but somehow between then and yesterday, all the trousers had disappeared so I had the kids drag everything into the lounge, I got out my faithful spreadsheet and filled in the gaps....this served two purposes.
1) it made sure nothing was hiding anywhere
2) it meant my list of things "to make" diminished rapidly, because I changed the spreadsheet from "four complete sets of clothes for each person" to "let's see if the list I've written for travelling is going to work" (ie considerably fewer items for each person).


I was on a roll and dragged the kids back inside to bring down all the summer clothes aswell and I sorted through them for NEXT summer. Clothes that are still in acceptable condition were noted on the spreadsheet and immediately packed into this box, not to be touched before the sun warms up again. (The pile beside the box is stuff to be refashioned - all op-shop finds coz I haven't gone near any Brand New Shops this year - those things are highlighted in blue on the spreadsheet - LOL, go on, you know you want to). The frayed-stained-don't-wear-this-out-where-anyone-will-see-you clothes have been kept out, along with one nice set Just In Case it warms up again before winter sets in.


All I have to do come springtime is buy two shirts for J11 and sandals for most.

intricate simplicity

(but right now I'd better get sewing those blue-highlighted winter items....especially as the ones with a box drawn around them I have to sew from scratch!)

T can turn 3

No-one has been allowed to tell T2 that her birthday is in *x* days...just in case I didn't get her quilt finished -she would never know if the big day was five days late! But as it turns out, I'm done in plenty of time. Plus I've almost done one for ER (10mo) with the leftovers.

I put it on the bed along with lovingly-homemade-rescued-from-the-op-shop-for $3-dolly for a photo shoot before all being packed away for another two weeks.

As I was making the quilt T2 was hovering around:

T: Who's that quilt for Mama?

Mama: For a little girl

T: ER is a little girl

M: Yes she is, isn't she

An hour later

T: Actually (pause) I think the quilt's for me. For mine birthday.

M: Do you? Do you like it?

T: Actually I do. It's quite nice.

That's fortunate!!!!!! And I'm sure she'll like having her *own* dolly complete with a dress and a pinafore and a lace-edged petticoat and bloomers.

I'd rather be.....

.......well, doing anything NOT in the kitchen!!!!!! Cooking is not my fave activity and I've just done a cooking post and it seems so....flat and downright boring. I mean to say, beans, chickpeas and a handful of lentils, just don't do it for me! (or the men who routinely eat at my dining room table I might add!!!!)

So I browsed through my photos....and came across these bits I picked up at a second-hand store.

one lovely little homemade dress with tiny red roses on it...unfortunately it probably won't fit ER(9mo) by next summer but it was just so cute...and HOMEMADE and if I have to cut it up to go on the red shirt with the scalloped collar, so be it...it is such a dainty pattern; it'll get used for something.
the white shirt with one big red flower will need to be remade....will it go bigger for J12 or smaller for K8?
and the red-n-white checks with a couple of cherries....well, that just matched!


AHHHH, now that feels better. So much more inspiring!


Do you remember me getting the big*bargain*bit*of*fabric?

Now look what can go with it - the little pink ruffley skirt will become one layer in a multi-layered skirt with lots of ribbon-n-rick-rack-n-broderie anglaise. The green and white check pants will be attached to another zillions-of-layers-skirt for the bigger of the two girlies...again with lots of fun sewn onto it. Plus I picked up a bright apple green artist's shirt to go with it for a couple of dollars. I feel an applique coming on!
Some of the other things I'll pick to pieces and just use the fabric or little flowers or ruffles (like that teeny tiny green and white check shirt that won't fit anyone unless we have another baby before next summer!!!!! *laugh*choke*chortle* BTW, you'll have to click on the photo to blow it up and see the gorgeous wee gingham buttons and delightful little flowers on the shirt)....the dress in the top left-hand corner is absolutely funky, but it doesn't fit my biggest girl and is waaaaaay too big for the only other one. I don't really want to remake it into anything else because it's just perfect as it is.....now *that* is a much more interesting problem to be pondering that *what are we going to have for dinner tonight?*

plasticFANTASTIC?????

Have you noticed that little ticker I've got in my sidebar?

Can you believe that many plastic bags have been consumed this year? What happens to them? Where do they go? Well, if you click on the ticker it'll take you to a site that has pictures of where some of them end up - polluting the earth.

I first started thinking about plastic bags when I lived in Poland back in the early nineties. You had to buy them. They didn't come free. Just like everyone else, we bought a wicker basket and used that for doing our shopping. Almost twenty years later that same basket is going strong, and it's never broken spilling its contents onto the ground, and when it eventually does die, it can go into the compost and help my grandchildren's veges grow!
(there she is on the left)


Sometimes it used to be a bit of a squeeze to get a week's worth of food from the market into the basket...and now with another eight mouths to feed, it's impossible. So I've made a whole lot of bags, which we take when we go out. They are a talking point and I can spread the word a wee bit.

At first my kids weren't too sure. But they have noticed the ticker. They cannot even imagine how bit the number has got to now - it's much bigger than a million;-)
We worked out what our little effort can do.....if we were to get six bags at the grocery store and another four at the vege shop, then another couple later in the week for more fruit and a couple from the butcher and then three or four more for gifts or clothing or books or other random purchases we might make and one or two from the dairy....that's potentially twenty bags a week. About a thousand bags a year. And we're only one family.
So now my kids have joined me on the crusade to use reusable sustainable natural bags. Our favourites are the ones we make from clothing that has been worn out, but I'd really like to buy one of these recycled juice bags that I've seen at Trade Aid. At first I was put off by the $30 price tag - but if we stopped buying plastic bags at 10c a bag (not to mention the hidden costs of disposal and the longterm nightmare they present), we would save $100 a year and could instead put our money towards supporting some families in the Philippines who are getting a fair wage for making these. WIN-WIN

*FLUFFY* CLOTH BOTS

I love my cloth nappies.

I like that they are soft.
I especially like the ones made from bamboo - it's a sustainably-grown product that requires no pesticides, uses very little water and grows fast....not to mention the anti-bacterial qualities it has.
I like that they are safe (there are no dangerous chemicals right next to bubba's skin).
I enjoy the sight of nappies floating in the breeze.
I love the smell of freshly-laundered naps.
I appreciate using something that I have made....both the nappies and the covers to go over them.
I enjoy the creativity of making them.
I'm pleased they won't go into landfill when we're done with them, but can be used as rags or turned into something else.....or even passed on to another generation (imagine doing *that* with a sposie!!!!)
I love using wool - it doesn't need to be washed often, and when it does all it takes is a swish around in some warm water with some lanolin soap, it is breathable, it is natural, it's available locally, it looks gorgeous, it's warm in winter~cool in summer....what could be better?
Best of all, there are no leaks!!!!!

If you're really not interested, I've probably lost you already, but if you want to see just how cute a wee bot can be, look at these clever little slideshows......

But they're not all light pink - I've done some brights and dark ones too......

(oh, and do you like the knitted basket for my reusable cloths? ~ very first photo up the top)

Blue Baganza

What do you do when you have no computer for 24 hours, the kids cook dinner (stew with dumplings followed by pavlova with blueberries from J12's bush) and Father Bear comes home late?

You line a bag you knit last year just to finish it off....this side was inspired by Kaffe Fassett

but crikey, I couldn't be bothered with all the wool changes so the other side was inspired by the New Zealand almost-icon, the koru....symbol of new life.

I even put pockets in the bag - hardly necessary when it's so small, but I just worked out how to do them tidily so it's a bit of a novelty!

Then you make up an entirely new bag, making it up as you go along. Only problem with that is the cool little vintage button I found that would have been *perfect* didn't fit the buttonhole - ah well, never mind.

And you put those funky little tassles on the back to so as to use them all up!


Again, lots of pockets inside!!!

Do you think I could sell this on ebay? I never have anywhere to go that I could take this!!!! I only ever take a big nappy bag or a little nappy bag!!!

If you can't see the pictures too clearly, remember you can click on them and they'll blow up to fill your screen so you can see every wonky seam and every dropped stitch.

Oh I nearly forgot to say these bags were made entirely of leftovers...from our couch upholstery, from the bumper on the children's ancient cane pram that they sleep in when they are newborn, from the BLUEquilt, from a "set of sewing bags" and from all sorts of knitting projects....it's great to use up odds and ends. The bamboo handle was the only *new* thing, but even that was an op shop find.

what made me use plastic boxes?

Double-post today for those of you who heard about and wanted to see a piccie of the bags I made this morning.

While the children were baking bread/making muffins/playing board games I decided to tidy the games cupboard. The games live in plastic boxes, most of which are falling apart.....so even though I love the way they stack, I decided to say goodbye to plastic and let my creative side have a bit of fun making an eclectic collection of fabric bags. Three down....lots to go! And slowly the fabric boxes empty (actually, we're only just getting to the point that the lids can almost go *on*!)

This one is made from old leggings, the sleeve of a tshirt, some freecycle material and some "leftover stripes":


These ones are recycled serviettes from a thrift shop, and the patchwork one is lined with an old shirt (front and back views):

Production Line

Another afternoon....another pencil roll. This one for K9. He chose the leftover fabric from the backing of his quilt I made last year. That fabric he had seen and desperately loved - probably because it was the ONLY sporty-looking fabric in the store! As I unloved it just as desperately, I told him we'd use it for a quilt backing if it came down to $5 a metre (highly unlikely I thought!!!!). It was with some difficulty I stayed true to my word! I pretty much let him choose the fabrics for the front - though given totally free reign he'd have had a few more colours and even more soccer balls on red - YEEHA!

I didn't want to spend forever making this quilt so I did huge squares with just a little embroidery to make it special! With polarfleece backing and and unusual twist on a border (just down two sides), it is not a traditional quilt - I think that might end up the hallmark of my quilts! Nothing quite normal!

Another evening....yet another pencil roll.


M4 chose his favourite PJs, favourite sweatshirt and an old pair of dungarees. It is definitely more fiddly making things out of old clothes than just cutting into a nice new freshly laundered piece of cotton. But new fabric doesn't have the same memories!

Friday Favourites #1

The Sound of Music is one of my favourite movies (I know, I know, give me a break, so it is!). I particularly love the song MY FAVOURITE THINGS because, even though I'm sure it was not the intention of the writer, it does remind me to be thankful for the many blessings in my life.

So beginneth *Friday Favourites*


This is our craft corner...all newly tidied. The desk was given to us by a neighbour, the sewing machine and wooden sewing box were my mil's, some of the baskets came back with us from Poland, others are from the Sally Army shop, the denim bag was my favourite skirt until it wore so thin it tore across the butt, the woolen bags and baskets I've knit and felted, other bags I've sewn, the button tin was a $1.50 thrift shop treasure....do you see the mending basket? (hint: it's on top of the sewing box) It's intentionally small, so it CANNOT get overwhelming!
I know my fat quarter stash *shouldn't* be sitting out getting dusty...but it's inspiring to see the beautiful fabrics. Small price to pay.



The pincushion is made of leftover fabrics from other projects, one of my first crazy quilt projects.


On the windowsill is a candle. While I sometimes wish for a minimalist house, I know I like little spots of beauty like this one. And I LOVE candles!

Happy Hubby Birthday

He was going to get a handmade with lots of love quilt for his birthday....but he mentioned earlier in the week that it was a bit like buying me a weedeater for *my* birthday, a really good weedeater, but a weedeater all the same. Later he complimented me on the beautiful quilt I was making for myself! I took the hint and on the spur of the moment yesterday went thrift shopping (no brand new pressies this year!)....he had been commenting a wee bit about an *old* uncomfortable couch in the family room, so I decided to make every effort to replace it. Now we have a homely inviting corner instead, even if the hidden chair needs *lots* of TLC. That's what you get for $2!!!



(The as-yet-unfinished-quilt still made it into the present, but was not the focal point! When I've finished it, I'll do more photos)

But that's not all. There had been rumours that I was going to make him a pair of undies.....he had threatened to burn them if I did.......but I found some brand new ones in an unopened packet in the secondhand shop! So he got undies too;-)

Happy birthday darling....hope you liked your impromptu-birthday-dinner-a-day-early last night....we could never have hidden this room from you for a whole evening;-)

confessions of a thrifter

I'm not supposed to be buying any new fabric till I've used up what I've got.

When I do start buying again, I'll only buy with a particular project in mind.


They were my *fabric guidelines* until I saw this



It screamed BUY ME....actually, it wasn't even for sale - it was part of a display in a thrift store - so I asked the lady if I could buy it! It's a huge piece and she gave it to me for $2, so at least it was a bargain;-)

And I don't know what I'm going to do with it. Any ideas?



Then seeing as I'd already broken both my self-imposed rules, I brought this home too.....both rules broken again!


There were two lengths of it attached to a wooden ring????????? I've chopped one off and put it up on the wall - you'll have to wait til tomorrow to see that one. What should I do with the other? Isn't it gorgeous!