The hand-plaited string cord I made yesterday was one step in reviving this old leather purse that I found in the basement cleanout last year. It needed thorough cleaning and reconditioning (which I did today) and a better strap – the old one was a too-short piece of ugly store-bought string.

I pondered a while how to make it so that the cut-off ends of yarn won’t get caught up in the zipper. And then realized that one solution is to just leave the ends so long that they can lie flat along the sides, and the actual ends of the yarn ends aren’t anywhere near the zipper.

Now I have a second mini-purse or loose pocket, to keep the first one company.

I have also learned that the word plait, as in “a plaited cord”, does not rhyme with “wait”, “gait” and “strait”, but is instead pronounced like “plat”. For literal decades I’ve only seen this word in writing and drawn the obvious conclusion about its pronunciation. Last week Adrian and I watched the Great British Bake-Off, where the contestants were making plaited bread. When they first said “plait” so as to rhyme with “flat”, I thought it might be a regional dialect. Then all the others did the same. I had to confirm with a dictionary or two before I could believe it. How does that make any sense?