A Day Off

The last couple of weeks have been busy.

First, October eleventh I taught a braiding class for my lace group, the West Michigan Lace Group. The Monday holiday meant I had the night off from work, so I taught the class in the afternoon, then attended the meeting in the evening.

Both last week and this week I've been taking our son up to the public school to take the MEAP (Michigan Educational Assessment Program) tests. He was taking them with one of the sixth grade classes, so we had to show up in the morning at the time they were taking them.

The tests took about two hours each, so I brought Glöckchen along each day and worked on it steadily.I've nearly finished the fourth of the seven little bellflowers, and I'm up to round 80-something of about 150.

It's getting bigger and more difficult to stretch it out on the needle without risking pulling stitches off.

Today I took the day off from knitting on it, and went in to town to the antique stores.

I knew I heard something calling my name.

I saw this lazy Susan mirror tray in a booth last summer, and dithered over buying it. But when I went back and didn't find it, I knew by my sinking heart that I had really really wanted it.The doily is not under the glass - it's etched (or something) on the mirror. It's a perfect photo image of a real knitted doily. Isn't it beautiful?

When I spotted it in the booth again I snatched it up.

I will probably take the lazy Susan base off and hang the mirror on the wall, but the other thing I found was the smaller of these two little Delft-style teapots.I bought the bigger one last summer, and I could have sworn I posted about it, but if I did, I can't find it.

The bigger one on the left was very very dirty and had no top, and I soaked it in vinegar and then in bleach water, then in changes of boiling water before I dared make tea in it.

The little one on the right was perfectly clean and came with an unglazed strainer. It holds twelve ounces of water, just enough for a mug of tea plus a little warm-up.

Neither one has anything marked on the bottom, so all I can say for sure is that they are tin-glazed pottery, and very likely painted by the same person.

So a very satisfying expedition!