I forgot to mention in yesterday’s entry. . .you see, I’d gotten to the part where I was supposed to put the grommets into the vests for the RenFaire costumes. I hoped against hope that the grommets and grommet tool I’d gotten would work, despite the fact that they came from the craft store and were manufactured by Prym-Dritz (under a subsidiary label, the sneaky bastiges!) Needless to say, those hopes were dashed, but thankfully on scrap fabric rather than the costumes themselves. The amount of time and money I’ve wasted on their second-rate products should have taught me something by now, but I guess I’m just too optimistic about it. So my first call out to find a decent grommet setting tool that doesn’t cost $150 is to boating/fishing supply store – hey, they must have stuff for repairing sails, right? Well, they had something in their catalogue, but not in stock. No good. I find a couple of places online, and the kits are under $10 – you do need to buy one for each size of grommet, but that’s OK, I’m not going to be making tons of stuff with grommets. However, add in the shipping, and you almost double the price. Hubby, in the meantime, had suggested checking with Ken’s, since they’re local, and have every friggin’ tool and piece of hardware under the sun – and they have a website! He checked, and sure enough, they had these kits, in stock, and they were still open.

I went in, and not only did they have the size I needed, but a whole bunch of others, and additional packs of grommet sets, too! The hole punch needed some help, but the grommets worked, unlike the Dritz ones. Hooray for Ken’s! (They’re on Fischer Blvd in the Cost Cutters plaza in Toms River, BTW. . .)