I got the burgundy tapestry hung up on the wall, complete with tapestry rods and a weighted rod at the bottom to straighten it out. It still doesn’t hang perfectly straight, but it’s a lot better than before…I’m working on the black tapestry tonight.
I haven’t figured out what to do about the exquisite little purple table-runner that I’m hanging up on the wall between them. It’s too small for the tapestry rods, so I’ll have to find something else–perhaps a bellpull hanger?–to hold it up. I’m thinking carefully about the alternatives.
With the rug, I think I’ve decided to sew Velcro to the top edge of the rug, then take a thin piece of wood, attach Velcro to that, and then screw the wood into the wall. That should give me a stronger bond than just gluing Velcro to the wall (not to mention being a whole lot more removable), and should hold the rug up without damage.
Still exploring new hobbies…I went over to The Woolery (or at least their Website) and checked out their huge sale on everything, but eventually decided not to buy anything, even though there were a lot of interesting items. In accordance with my own philosophy of “traveling light”, I’m not going to buy anything I can’t see using immediately, which rules out stocking up on, say, undyed wool yarn that I might use eventually for dye samples, or merino wool that I might use for learning Paula Simmons’ one-handed spinning method.
One thing I’ve realized is that stocking up at sales rarely pays off, unless you really use your entire stash–which almost never happens. It doesn’t matter that it’s cheaper on sale; the stuff you don’t use usually outweighs the discount. As an example, if I succumb to a sale and buy 10 skeins of yarn at 20% off, but only use eight of those skeins before getting bored and starting another project, I might just as well have bought eight skeins at full price–I pay the same price for what I’m using, either way. The only upside/downside is that if I buy it on sale, I now have two extra skeins of yarn sitting around. If those skeins of yarn get used eventually, then great–I’ve benefitted from buying it on sale–but while they’re sitting around, they’re a waste of space and money. Every spinner, knitter, etc. that I know has bags of wool, yarn, etc. that they haven’t/aren’t going to use. It’s extra $$ you have sitting around in bulky, space-hogging materials rather than cash.
(Not to mention that I have way too many hobbies to be able to afford stash and space for every hobby…! Just this week I’ve been playing around with origami, cooking, home decorating, cycling, and handspinning…if I built stash around everything I’d be broke and with no space whatsoever in my house! I like to keep as flexible as possible, so I prefer cash to stash.)
Been reading through Madeleine Kaufman’s The Making of a Chef tonight, and have decided that I like it better than Julia Child’s Learning the Art of French Cooking. They’re both good books on the basics of cooking, but I find Kaufman’s to be more detailed and more catering to the gourmet chef. Its only drawback is that it’s huge–probably double the size of The Art of French Cooking. Of course, they’re both excellent books, you can’t go wrong either way.
