Flea market season kick off!

It's that time of year again, kids...flea market time.  Those magical Sundays when you set your alarm for 5:30, roll out of bed, slather on the sunscreen, chug your coffee and wander around vast fairgrounds full of treasure until you just can't wander anymore.

There was a shockingly small amount of rick-rack to be had. To be honest, I was a little disappointed.  Fortunately, for my friend Andrea, there were copious amounts of seashell art around, so her blog, Just for the Shell of It, is gonna get juicy.

Here are my findings:

Aprons --

Pretty classic rick-rack usage -- but I do love it as a way
to break up prints and solids.   

Embroidered rick-rack on gingham -- these are a few
of my favorite things (it's ok if you sang that line,
I totally did.)

   

And then....then, this happened....

 

Sadly, there wasn't a great way to get a good picture of this tragedy that calls itself a Christmas apron.  Held up or laying flat, it'll suck any Christmas cheer right out of the room.   It's a single line of rick-rack in a blobby christmas tree shape, adorned with three crappy bells.  Functional bells.  Out of proportion, cheap, functional, mismatched bells.  Oy.

And I'm sorry, the colors??  A warm red with an olive green? Ew. It needs way more than just an introduction to an iron to make it worthy to be worn while serving grandma's jello mold/salad.

Moving on.

Here's a super cute usage that I've never seen before:

It's kinda darling, right?  Just the tiniest bit of the edge is caught in the seam.  AND it's glittery.  It's a win, win!

I had a similarly quilted pillow when I was a kid -- but with eyelet lace around the edges.  I have a bit of a soft spot for this guy.

I would have loved to wrap up this post with an account of how I found the ones that got away -- but I didn't.  Rather, I found their smaller cousins in yellow.  Set of 4 for TWENTY DOLLARS!  I could not believe it.  I got all cranky last year about 6 for $18 -- maybe I should have pounced when I had the chance.  No worries, I'm not giving up the search.

Since they weren't meant to be, we'll end our tour of Elkhorn's season opener with a splendid use of rick-rack's long mocked cousin.

That's right, friends...I'm talkin' about ball fringe.  

I very much want to see a circus clown pushing her
clown baby around in this freaking fantastic pram.