accidental bags of wool

Is it a good thing to have a woollen mill factory outlet in your town? Me thinks yes and no. There are great bargains to be had with bags of wool that are priced per kilo and you can run amok making all sorts of things out of just one bag. Half a bag of recently purchased wool has made me a great woollen cardy and it only cost about $20 for the full bag. That's an absolute bargain isn't it? And there's enough wool to make another jumper or cardy too.

The down side is definitely the "accidental bags of wool" purchases that seem to happen to me when I just "pop" into the outlet to see what they have. You see you HAVE to do this, as you just never know what may be there. So of course you HAVE to keep checking in case they have just put out exactly what you are after. I'm on the hunt you see for a really lovely lime green 8 ply wool that I KNOW THEY HAVE SOMEWHERE as I've seen it in the lady behind the counter's personal stash. But the unfortunate thing is I always end up with accidental purchases in my hunt for the illusive green wool. Take today for example, as I just popped (there it is that word again"popped"...popping you see can be very dangerous indeed!) into the factory outlet and once again came out without my lovely green wool :-( .....but picked up two bags of equally lovely other-coloured wool that I don't really need, but couldn't leave in the shop in case I will need them one day. One bag is 18 balls of a lovely turquoise alpaca & wool blend & the other is 10 100g balls of mauve 8 ply which will team nicely in my current cushion cover project. All for a bargain basement price of $38.50. Don't tell the man that lives at my house OK?

time to flee to acapulco...

I love a bit of colour and very much love tea, so it is time to call my favourite cup into action. I bought this in an op shop for $2....can you believe that? How could they possibly think that such a thing would be worth so little? I was stunned and bought it with a rather large cheesy happy grin and have been grinning ever since. I would love to collect more of this Villeroy & Boch range, but due to a lifetime of PFC (personal financial crisis) I am unable to indulge.

a treasure

Just had to share this with you. Found this kitchen dresser at the op shop. I lerve it! And the best this about it was that it only cost me $20. It's now in the bead shop and fits in rather nicely with the pretty much "junk shop" theme of the shop.

wooden bead handbag

wooden bead handbag
Originally uploaded by fredtheemu

Op Shopping

Did a bit of spontaneous op shopping when I should have been opening my bead store early...ahhh but who can resist the urge of what finds may lay behind those op shop doors? Not me, even the added hassle of popping coins into the parking meter didn't deter me. I'm on the hunt for embroidered napkins for a little cafe project that is forming. I came out of the op shop with no napkins, but a street directory, a scarf, a jumper and this groovy wooden bead handbag. Not sure whether I should chop it up for the beads, or just enjoy it as it is. Perhaps it will be a matter of giving it a road test and if it doesn't work then it will end up as beads...kind of like being sent to the abattoir isn't it?