Beautiful bargain

After quite a time spent in procrastination this morning, I’m pleased to announce that I did actually get some work done – eventually. My major sources of distraction this morning were pretty blogs. The big problem with blogs is that they often link to others. So I’ll be reading through a post and click on a link for another pretty blog. That next blog will also have several links to blogs I’ve never seen before, and before you know it I’ve spent all morning drooling over gorgeous projects and not a scrap of work has been done. I’m guessing that I’m not the only one with this problem (am I?!) and that pretty blogs probably contribute fairly substantially to procrastination levels worldwide.

Anyway, I managed to drag myself away from the distractions long enough to mostly plan Sunday school before I went out for my meeting. And as a reward for actually getting something productive done I stopped in town on my way home to browse through charity shop goodies.

Charity shops have not always been my favourite places – I never liked (and am still not particularly keen on) the smell of them as a child, but I’ve got over that now as I realise there can be some fantastic finds if you spend a little time looking. My bargain today came from the bottom of a crate of linen goods, mostly napkins and table runners. I came across a bundle of 3 napkins with pretty embroidery in the corner. They would have been perfect for making some buttons from, but at £2 for 3 they were more than I can afford right now. I put them back and carried on rummaging and found the greatest bargain – a small tablecloth for £1.20!

And it’s just covered in embroidery!

Each corner has the same design, but in different colours – purple…

…blue…

…yellow/orange…

…pink.

I love these little flowers which are dotted around.

There are one or two small stains in places, but as I’ll be cutting it up for buttons it really doesn’t matter to me. There may even be one or two other projects that come out of this beauty – I’m just waiting for inspiration to hit!

It’s whizzing around in the washing machine right now, and I’ll give it a good old iron before I get started on cutting it up. In some respects it’s a bit of a shame to ‘vandalise’ it with scissors, but I figure it’s better to make use of things in a new format rather than let them sit unloved and gathering dust elsewhere.

(By the way, blame the photo quality on the weather – it’s so gloomy all the time at the moment that I’m finding it really hard to get a good picture!)