I went shopping for furniture and tablecloths happened instead.

I wasn’t looking for tablecloths, honest!

Janeray and I sold so much furniture at September’s Vintage Bazaar that I went to the flea market at a bracing 6 a.m. to see what I could scare up to replenish our meager remaining stock.

You gotta go early to get the good stuff. I’ve seen customers there before daylight, shining their flashlights into dealers’ vans as the poor guys are trying to unload in the darkness!

Alas, I wasn’t quite early enough for a piece I would have snapped up in heartbeat—a vintage wood desk with a single drawer, a big old glass knob, and a black painted finish that just needed a little polishing. The lady standing right in front of me snagged it for under ten bucks. Darn!

You win some, you lose some.

So I lost on furniture this time, but boy did I ever win it big on tablecloths!

A whole bunch of dealers had piles of vintage linens that they seemed willing to practically give away. The reason probably is that almost all of them have stains small or large. If a dealer doesn’t specialize in linens, she usually doesn’t want to be bothered trying to get stained ones back to pristine shape.

I don’t exactly specialize in linens, but I do love them, and I consider stains a professional laundry challenge, so . . . .

Here’s what I came home with!

A card-table size Florida souvenir cloth. I love those blue . . . coconuts? giant dates? in the trees.

Oh yes, there’s more!