Friday, July 07, 2006

Road trip — the flea market

Before heading down to the Lake on Monday, several of us decided to check out the Cascade Flea Market. It was a beautiful day and I'm a sucker for an outdoor market. It was pretty festive with flags flying and all vendors promised special prices just for the holiday weekend, although the well-established look of that 50% off sign would make you wonder if anything ever sells for the full price.


I was quite fascinated by this large display of herbs and remedies.






Closer inspection of those tubs revealed such potions as "wolf spirit," "Egyptian Goddess," and "Patchouli Opium"—really?






There were a lot of dangerous looking weapons for sale—swords and rather gruesome-looking knives. When I first saw this display I thought these brightly-colored objects were some kind of musical instrument. Wrong. They are blow guns, whatever those are.







These velvet purses looked really pretty spread out across a table, but I wasn't tempted to buy one. A little too Janis Joplin for me.




Lots of yard ornaments, most were pretty cheap and gaudy, but these metal pieces were nice.












So, what did I buy? Two packages of beads and a pair of silver earrings with reddish stones (50% off, of course) and a package of crunchy dried corn snacks, which were very tasty with a cold beer down at the lake later that day. The beads were a very spontaneous purchase. The dark, ethnic-looking ones are all different and quite interesting. There is even a wee elephant in there. I don't tend to sew beads on my quilts, so maybe they will end up together as some kind of crazy necklace. Or maaaaaaaybeee I'll sew them on a quilt.

3 comments:

  1. Awww, come on - you know you want to add some bling to your quilts!

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  2. A blow gun is an old form of hunting weapon, where people would blow poisonous darts at their prey. Sometimes killing them, or at least disabling them....

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  3. Or perhaps a blow gun could be adapted so as to blow a bead at a quilt at such force that it imbeds itself in the fibers, thereby avoiding the tedium of hand stitching them in place. Sometimes enhancing it, sometimes not.....

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