And other things. But first, auctions.

Specifically, the auction that WH and I attended last Friday, wherein we had much fun and came away with some pretty neat stuff, acquired very cheaply.

Behold:

A carved wooden elephant, complete with howdah and mahout. The mahout has a tiny turban!

A lamp that resembles a geodesic dome (CG, don’t worry – I didn’t pay much for this stained-glass delight.)

And the best win, this lovely 1930s-era Windsor-style chair, which looks like no Windsor I’ve ever seen, and is a lovely, rickety confection (which we scored for $30). The back is equally lovely:

(not blurry like this in person, I promise; it was very foggy and dim this morning)

The auction happens the second Friday of every month, down near Merkerson’s seafood off Ralph David Abernathy. It’s got a barbecue buffet (which goes quickly), and is a great, low-key, affordable auction. There were some amazing rugs that we hadn’t brought enough money to bid on seriously. I’m okay with that. There will be more.

Anyway. Still practicing the ukulele, but I’m not good enough to share that yet. I bought some nice new strings, though, and those will go on as soon as I get them, which should help with the dull-sounding C string.

I’ve also been doing crafts (as usual), and they are these:

The husband had selected a yarn a couple of years ago, with the expectation that I would knit fingerless gloves for him. I hemmed and hawed, and discarded pattern after pattern, finally settling on a WWII-era pattern intended to be sent to GIs on the front. He’s really excited about it. Here’s the first glove:

I was going to surprise him but realized that our hands are very different in size, and so had to use him to measure the fit. They fit well. And knit up in two hours! I’ll be making more of these.

Also, I’ve been working on my Ishbel scarf:

I have been describing it as being in a larval stage, because it doesn’t look like much yet and I’ve just started in on the lace portion. The color is amazing. I’m very happy that I ripped out the beret and am reknitting this as a scarf. It will be finished just in time for the weather to be warm again. Isn’t that usually the way it goes?

THEN (but actually before all this), a couple of weekends ago, Blogless Lea and I took a bunch of ladies out on a fabulous day-long adventure, wherein we introduced them to Patel Brothers grocery, Zyka (an Indian restaurant), and two saree shops. Mirage Sarees went over very well, even if I got their hours wrong and we went later than expected. Several of the ladies bought salwar suits, and a couple bought sarees, but there was a run on dupioni and other fabrics. I was among those doing the running. I bought this to make into a court ghagra (I have no fancy summer court garb yet):

It’s a pretty decent equivalent, when the 10-foot rule is applied. And that hoop in the right corner? It’s for doing this:

I’m doing zardozi (tambour w/gold) work around each of the diamonds, on the whole of the fabric, which will up the fancy factor a bit. It should be very lovely when I’m done.

Anyway, we also bought some shoes, and jewelry, and lots of scarves, and then there was a trip to an amazing embroidery shop (I bought loads more than was intelligent), and we ended up finally at Texas Sari Sapne. Texas isn’t the cheapest of the Atlanta saree shops, but they have the largest selection of relatively-affordable traditional silks and other fabrics, so it was a good shop to show people. I ended up giving an impromptu lesson on traditional Indian fabric embellishment techniques, since I found THE saree (which is my especially fancy court garb) for SCA:

Look at the zari work in the body!

Look at the kundan and embroidery:

It’s fine silk (and a nice traditional weave at that), and the little puckers around the dots in the bandhani let me know that some person somewhere did that by hand.

An excellent find. One of the ladies asked what I was going to cut it up to make, and I said that I wasn’t doing any cutting on this one. It’s too lovely. I did a quick pleat in the shop, (which earned me a surprised “you do that like an Indian lady!” from the shopkeeper) and satisfied with the drape, took it home with me. Draped in the usual manner, the folds and the way the pattern sits looks almost identical to some of the patterns in the ghagras of Mewari miniatures. So amazing. (But I am so totally cutting myself off for a while. I need to go on a saree fast.)

Sunday Jennie and SurlyQueen and I went hiking, and afterwards Jennie and I were looking for a place to eat. I pulled up my Urbanspoon app, set it to random, and this came up in the search:

Sure enough, down the road we passed Come N Get It, which had a decent number of cars parked outside. We decided to pass on it this time, even though the lady in the photo looks so inviting. We went to IHOP instead.

This weekend is a calmer, but nonetheless exciting excursion. I will be sure to relate details after the fact. And maybe post a uke video, if I’m feeling especially brave.