Another Gamble Pays Off

This 11.88 lbs. of yarn didn't have very good photos on the ShopGoodwill.com auction listing, which is probably why I was the only bidder. I bid on it on a whim, but I wouldn't have paid any more for it than the minimum that I bid -- and with which I won the lot.

What made me bid on a lot that didn't look promising? I saw some labels that made me suspect that despite the terrible pics it could be good quality. Also, from the weight I guessed there would be a lot more yarn than the photos were showing. Here's how it looked when it arrived.

Counting 40 new or nearly-new skeins as I unloaded the box, half still with labels, I found out I was right on both counts, and then some.

There are plenty of expensive skeins in this lot, including multiple skeins of chenille, tweed, chunky boucle and specialty yarns. This Premier wool-free metallic/acrylic retails for $6.99 a skein.

Sugar and Cream cotton yarn currently retails for $4.49 a skein. I know because I went to JoAnn last month to price some and didn't buy any because it was so expensive.

I found a solid green version of this Lion Brand Holiday yarn for sale on eBay for $19.99 a skein, so I'll assume it's vintage. The lot came with three of them with metallic gold accent thread.

None of the yarn is soiled or smells, so I would comfortably price this lot at $3.00 a skein for resale, or $120.00. I paid $9.99 for the lot, which works out to about twenty-five cents per skein. Not a bad deal at all.

Image credit: the first pic in this post came from the auction listing at ShopGoodwill.com.

Comments

Downsizing

This was my fabric stash once I sorted everything -- 22 full bins. I spent a day taking out and boxing up what I could part with, with the goal of trying to reduce it by half, so I'd have 11 bins. I was very strict with myself, and removed everything that for one reason or another I was sure I wouldn't be able to use. This is what I ended up with -- 12 bins of fabric that I'm keeping. It's not quite half, but close enough. Half of what I took out went to a local quilter friend, a school and Goodwill. These four tightly-packed bins will be going to the local quilting guild once I make arrangements with them for a drop-off place. I am relieved and a little sad and now determined to control my impulses to thrift more fabric. I don't want to do this again, so until I use up six bins, I can't for any reason bring any new fabric into the house.

In Progress

I promised myself I would show you the good, bad and ugly of my cleaning this year. This is what it looks like when you dump thirty years' worth of stashed fabric on the floor -- and oy, what a pain in the butt to pick up again! This is what it looks like after it's been sorted, folded and placed in containers, which took me about a week. Now the hard part is to downsize my stash by at least half, I think (that's my goal, anyway.) I've already e-mailed the president of the local quilting guild, a local friend who is a quilter, and a public school art teacher I know to see if I can donate some of the excess to them. The rest will go to Goodwill. Already I've reduced my vintage textiles from two bins to one, and my scraps from three bins to one. It's probably the hardest clean-out I've done, which is why I saved it until last. I know I have too much fabric, more than I can use in my lifetime -- but at the same time, I love it. So I have to

Other Stashes

Along with clearing out the spare bedroom and tidying my office and our guest bedroom, I decided to reorganize some of my stashes. This is all the yarn I have on hand, sorted by color. It looks like a lot, but lately I've been using up a minimum of half a bin every month, so this is approximately a year's supply. All of my solid color cotton perle thread. I go through a lot of this every year, too. I need a container in which I can fit all of it together, but I haven't found the right one yet. I won't show you all of my fabric -- I'm still reorganizing this stash -- but I went through everything and donated two bins of fabric I won't need to the local quilter's guild.

Valerean

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