Side tracked

I have a whole list of things I need to be doing:

finish the pigs

make another pig for a friend of mine

tat several edgings for table runners

tat snowflakes

tat earrings

tat more snowflakes

For the last two days, instead of getting any tatting done at all, I was side tracked into putting together a themed basket for an auction.

In our community we have a retirement village that is in part sponsored by most of the area churches.  All of these sponsoring churches were asked to donate a themed basket to be auctioned off at a yearly fundraiser that is later this week.  This basket was brought up at our congregational meeting this last Sunday - and the basket has to be turned in today (Tuesday.)  As no-one else was inclined to do it, I volunteered.  So, for the last two days I've been hustling to find items for the basket and get it put together.

The theme: "Tea"

Yesterday I went shopping for the items I wanted in the basket.  The church gave me a set amount of money to spend and I had to come up with enough tea related items to fill a large basket, enough to make it worth bidding on, within that budget.  I am the only one that made the decisions on what would go in it *hehehehe*

I started out at Prairie Harvest, a local store that is a kind of a health food store but also carries loose teas.  I also bought some of their homemade peppernuts and some colorful candies to put in.  (I bought some wheat free peppernuts for me while I was there - yummy!)  I went next door to Kitchen Corner for a tea infuser and tea bag rest.  Then down the street to an antique and flea market to look for tea cups.  I found a set of two cups and saucers with pink roses on them that I liked, as well as a hanky that I thought would look good in the basket.  Then to a secondhand store where I found a basket I thought would work.  Then to the Dollar Tree where I picked up the filler paper, flowers and cellophane to wrap the basket.  Then to Wal-mart for a few more choices of cookies.

[I was not compensated in any way by any of these stores.  I just went to the ones that I thought would have the items I needed]

Whew! That was a lot of shopping in just a couple of hours.

Then home to start trying to put it together.

This morning I made the tag with the church's name, theme and contents and finished putting everything in the basket. And, of course, it had  be decorated a bit, too.  And then it had to be delivered.

I did include a little bit of tatting.  I found a bookmark I had made a while ago in Lizbeth Pink Cocoa that fit right in with the pink in the cups and hanky.  I also put a tatted butterfly on the front of the tag and a couple of simple tatted flowers on the back.

 This is the back before I added the flowers or included the bookmark to the list.  I added a little tea bag to bring in the basket's theme to the tag.

The tea cups that I found.

The filled basket before I added the cellophane.

The completed, wrapped basket.  I couldn't find a cellophane bag to put it in that didn't have all kinds of decorations on it so I had to buy a roll of cellophane instead.  It was fun putting it around the basket - okay, not really.

I thought it came out well.  I don't know that I will ever find out who will eventually get the winning bid on it, but that's okay.  I had fun putting it together and it's for a good cause. 

Now I need to get back on track with my tatting.  Where did I lay those shuttles down??

"Even if you're on the right track you'll get run over if you just sit there."

Will Rogers