score!
No secret here: I love yard sales, and I’ve been having PHENOMENAL luck with them since moving to Michigan. I don’t know what it is, if people just part with things easier here than in Maine, but I’ve found some real treasures.
Sunday morning, Woody and I hit a sale that had some boxes of yarn. I started to pick through, hesitating only because the smell of mothballs was so overwhelming, but before I could decide anything one way or the other, Woody had negotiated $5 total for both boxes. I hoped for the best. I mean, the smell was so bad that we had to open the rest of the windows in the car just to get home without being overcome by fumes.
I laid everything out in the sun and wind for the afternoon, and lo, after only one airing-out, about half the yarn is descented. The rest should be a-ok after another day of airing and/or a trip through the dryer with Dryel.
For $5, it was a steal. It’s all vintage yarn, and much of it foreign-made. Georges Picaud Chahut. Schachenmayr Nomotta Melodia. Lane Borgosesia Soft Fantasy. Isola Neveda. Welcomme L’Hispano. There’s bunches of discontinued Bernat, like Kabuki (a silk-acrylic blend), and Berroco, like Dante. There’s cottons: Corticelli, Unger Italian. The vast majority is mohair-blend. I think there was ONE lonely partial ball of crap acrylic out of the entire bunch, which is so unusual for a yard-sale lot that it kinda blows my mind. All told, it ended up being 150 balls of yarn. For $5!
I’m very sensitive to mohair, so obviously, most of this will become things to sell on Etsy, probably shawls and scarves. Here’s hoping I can get the last of the smell out!
great bargain, look forward to seeing what it all becomes. Here in UK it is hard now to pick up yarn at boot sales, I think people are using it more
It’s hard to find yarn at sales (and in secondhand shops) here as well; I’m sure it’s because people are using it more. What little you do find here is usually that awful coarse acrylic rug yarn from the ’70s, which is why this find was so unusual. I think the mothball stench kept other buyers away!
sweet! Congratulations on the great score.
How exciting! I bet it would take well to over-dyeing, too. All of that greyish purple could make for a really nice base color!
If the Dryel doesn’t work, give them balls a spray of Febreeze and run through the dryer. i tried this on some ebay fabric and it worked great.