Of lavender, family, shopping etc,.......

I have returned home after being on a vacation trip for two weeks. I had a great time but missed "blogville"! I have many pictures to show and will probably divide the trip into about three posts.  The first part of my trip was to Jonesborough Tennessee to visit family. Before I left home I had made a request to a family member that we visit the lavender shop in Jonesborough.........

 I had made several of these little bags and took them empty, hoping to find lavender flowers. As it turned out we went straight from the airport to the lavender store. She had lavender but she sold it in pound bags. A pound is a lot of lavender! It is also $40.00 a pound!  Thankfully, she agreed to sell half a pound.

I filled six or so bags and still had what is showing here in the jar left over. I used a rubber stamp on the bag, embroidered a lavender sprig across it and glued on the metal fleur de lis.

My niece & nephew gave me this and another bundle that they had grown in their Tennessee garden. I gave all but this one bag to family members. 

I picked out this little bowl and my sister insisted on paying for it.  By the way, I am starting my trip post with some little treasures I found - not because they come first in importance but because they are quicker to get posted.  I have tons of pictures to sort through for the next posts.

I will admit that part of the pleasure  of my trips to see family is finding inexpensive little things to bring back home. In the store next to the lavender store was this tea towel.

It is a good souvenir of my home town - Jonesborough.

This is the court house in Jonesborough - a beautiful structure. This picture was made from a lawn chair on the street!  Every Friday night in the summer they close off the street and have Music on the Square.

Last Friday night this group was there. I forget their exact name but I think the words Town Country are included. It is a bluegrass band - very good musicans. They had just come home from touring Europe. They are from North Carolina.

Here we are on the street. I am the one behind the big yellow cup and my ninety one year old sister next to me.

 

You may have glimpsed this old linen under the lavender bag, etc. in the first pictures. I found this in an antique store in Kingsport while on a traditional shopping day with two nieces (sisters). They are one and two years younger than I am and we were playmates when we were young. I guess we still are! This picture shows about a fourth of the table runner. It is made of linen and is in very good condition.  I was surprised to see the price of $6.00 on it!

This purchase has a story of its own. I thought for awhile I would not be bringing it home because I left it in the next store we went in!  How convenient that a nephew had a ball game near the store (quite a drive from his house and from where I was staying) a few days later and was able to reclaim it for me.

Can you tell that I like linens?  I found this new tea towel in the first antique store we went in that day. As you can see, I am using it on my small butcher block table.

The one dragon fly on it made it an easy sell for me.  That and the two shades of green.

Next came this Lenox sugar and creamer set.  I doubt it is antique but I liked the unusual shape of the creamer and its leaf design on the back. Plus, the price was surprisingly low for Lenox.

You might see this pictured again in my fall blog posts a little later.

Besides several antique stores we hit Hobby Lobby too.  That is where this chicken said she wanted to go home with me! How could I refuse her!

Isn't she a fine specimen???

At 66% off Hobby Lobby was practically giving away this large bag. I had it in my cart in the wink of an eye but one of the nieces put it in hers and then paid for it. This sure came in handy as a plane carry-on to help me get my purchases home.

After I knew I would not be paying for the bag I went back and got this cute little apron also 66% off.

It is well made with four different size pockets across the front, giving it more style.

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I traveled to Pennsylvania with my Tennessee relatives to attend our family reunion. I will continue with that in the next post.