Rather than go to Magnolia Square on Thursday and look at things that I couldn’t afford to buy, I decided to go op-shopping.  And the op shop gods were smiling on me!

A vintage sheet to add to the fat quarters I’m sending off to the vintage sheet patchwork swap; some buttons; vintage hand-embroidered linens that will become part of clothing or a bag; a pillowcase that will become yet another pillowcase dress; extremely old knitting/crochet books; and a girls dress pattern that I’m sure I remember from my childhood.  Mum, did you make me a dress from this pattern?  The one with the short sleeves?  But the most exciting find of the day was this:

A complete set of Golden Hands craft magazines!  Oh joy oh rapture.  They are from the early seventies – Mum had a set when I was a child, and it went off to an op shop somewhere about ten years ago after I reassured Mum that “no, I won’t want these”.  Well, fast-forward ten years and yes, I do want these!  I had a look through a set at Brown Owls last week and realised what a fantastic resource they are.  I was absurdly excited to find them in op shop number three (of six for the morning) for the grand total of $12.

Clare was most excited with my other (unphotographed) op shop find – a pair of Barbie roller-skates for $5.  She has barely had them off her feet since.  I am also very proud of her – she wore her patch at school for two hours on Friday.  It is proving difficult to get enough hours of patch wearing done with only before and after school, so I suggested that she could take her patches to school and wear them there too if she wanted to – and she did.  What maturity for a five year old.  Thank you also for the lovely comments about Clare’s glasses and eye patch – they are all very touching and much appreciated.