Danger! Fiber Fumes

I kept hearing about a secondhand store that sells fabric and yarn. A couple of women in our Knits & Needles group at the library had been there.

After our Knits & Needles meeting about a month ago, I headed across town to buy groceries at Aldis. I decided to go a few blocks out of my way to check out this secondhand fabric and yarn store. Just a quick look to see what it was all about. Not shopping. Certainly not buying. Just looking.

Fabric Recycles is a resale store with 2 locations in the Kansas City metro area. They sell fabric, notions, trims and yarn. They buy from people who are reducing their stashes and from estates of those who failed to outlive their stash and didn't take it with them.

I was just looking. Research for possible future shopping, right?

So why did these three items come home with me? Why?

It's those fiber fumes. They're dangerous. Wander around in a store full of fiber and you'll be overcome by the fumes.

The blue crochet thread will be used to make some patriotic bows/ribbons. I have red, white and blue crochet thread in my stash, but the blue is a sky blue. This royal blue will look much better in the bows/ribbons.

Take a closer look at the fabric.

My 4½ year old grandnephew loves any mode of transportation: cars, trucks, buses, planes, trains, construction equipment. You name it. If it moves, he'll love it. So the fabrics with the railroad cars and monster trucks will be stashed away for a potential future quilt for said grandnephew. No prediction on when it will get stitched.

Prices at Fabric Recycles are certainly better than your local quilt or yarn shop for comparable merchandise. Cotton quilting fabric was $4 a yard. However, some of the merchandise was stuff you find at chain stores and for that yarn and fabric, you'll likely save money or at least break even shopping the sales and using coupons at the chain stores.

Watch out for those fiber fumes. You may find your actions are uncontrollable when you are under the influence.

Simple Skyp - Heel Update

Partly inspired by the fun color patterning of the yarn, partly revived by a 4 month break from sock knitting, I'm working on my Simple Skyp socks almost daily. I finished the feet and heels in 3 weeks!

Just look at the fun stripes produced by the Opal Hundertwasser yarn (color 750 (3206) "Blinde Venus"). I'm going to love wearing these socks.

Here's a top view of the instep so you can see the Skyp ribbing pattern. I switched from size 0 (2.0 mm) to size 1 (2.25 mm) needles about ½" above the heel for a little extra circumference to offset the ribbing on the back of the leg versus the stockinette stitch on the bottom of the foot.

Earlier post about these socks: New Sock Project - Simply Skyp

New Sock Project - Simply Skyp

It's rare for me to go more than a few days without a pair of socks on the needles. It's usually the same pair for at least 3 months, but socks in progress none the less. But I have had no socks in progress for almost 4 months. I took a hiatus from sock knitting to knit a secret project that is now ready for seaming and finishing.

This morning I got out my yarn ball winder and wound a skein of Opal Hundertwasser, color 750 (3206) "Blinde Venus", into a cake. This yarn is from the 3rd series of self-striping sock yarn based on paintings by Austrian artist and sculptor Friedenreich Hundertwasser. Unfortunately, I found a knot and a major break in the color sequence about 15 grams into the 100 gram skein. Fortunately, only the one knot.

Inspired by one of Judy L's Sock Projects, I'm using the stitch pattern from Adrienne Ku's Simple Skyp sock pattern. I prefer working toe-up and the Simple Skyp pattern uses sport weight yarn (Opal Hundertwasser is fingering weight), so I'm making a few changes.

I'm using Wendy D. Johnson's Fingering Weight Toe-Up Socks With Gusset and Slip-Stitch Heel pattern modified to 72 stitches to accommodate my tight knitting on size 0 (2.0 mm) needles. The large size of Simple Skyp uses 72 stitches, making it easy to apply the stitch pattern to my toe-up version.

I fear the larger portion of the yarn, i.e., the 85 gram side of the knot, will be really close to the amount needed to make my socks with cuffs as long as I like. Using my postal scale, I divided the 85 grams of yarn into 2 not quite equal weight cakes, starting the 2nd cake at approximately the same spot in the color sequence as the first cake. I'm using the small, 15 gram cake from the other side of the knot to knit the toes. I'll switch to the larger cakes of yarn when I reach the instep.

Five rounds of toes done and many stitches to go.

How Red Heart Makes Yarn

This was in my Inbox today and I thought some of you might be interested in how a big yarn manufacturer makes acrylic yarn.

If the embedded video above doesn't work for you, visit Learn How Red Heart Yarn is Made to watch the video.

Vacation Shopping

Shopping during vacation in Albuquerque is a long-standing tradition. These days, I look for bargains for my charity projects. Somehow, I always find good buys in Albuquerque.

The JoAnns' flyer had lots of 40% off coupons good September 7 to 13, right in the middle of my vacation visit. Wanda and I each had flyers, as did Wanda's mom.

I went shopping first with Wanda's mom, Mrs. L, on Albuquerque's west side. At JoAnn's I got 3 skeins of Red Heart Super Saver yarn and 2 yards of blue fabric. The blue will be a great background for 3 dimensional bow-tie blocks.

Hancock Fabrics greeted us with 2 tables of fabric at 75% off. I bought about 15 yards of great kid's prints, mostly at $1.25 a yard. I hadn't planned to buy fabric, but I'm not likely to find cotton fabric at that price again anytime soon!

Best of all, my visit with Mrs. L included free fabric. She was clearing out some of her stash and passed some things on to me. There's some nice cotton fabric for Project Linus quilts along with some other stuff.

Later in the week, Wanda and I visited the 2 JoAnns stores in northeast Albuquerque. In the Menaul store, we both bought yarn. Wanda bought yarn in preparation for her machine knitting guilds charity knit-in. I bought more Red Heart Super Saver for Project Linus.

At the San Mateo store, Wanda found 2 abandoned flyers in a shopping cart, giving us even more coupons to spend. We both bought more yarn and I also got some 10 yard rolls of quilt batting. My haul for the day was 11 skeins of Red Heart Super Saver and 3 rolls of batting. We also stopped by Wal-Mart for some plastic containers for my quilt retreat.

So what do you do on vacation?

Yarn Acquistions on Black Friday

Fighting crowds of shoppers on Black Friday is not my kind of fun. However, this year JoAnns had yarn on sale at a price that is not likely to happen again anytime soon. And this was the yarn that I always buy for Dolores. At 10:00 am, my mom and I headed to JoAnns. I thought that the crowds would be smaller and the lines shorter by then. Maybe they were, but we still stood in the checkout line over 45 minutes.

But look what I got. Sixteen pounds of yarn at $4 a pound and 2 skeins of Red Heart Super Saver at $1.89, less 20% off of everything. The pound skeins were less than half their regular $6.99 price. In retrospect, the checkout line might have been shorter if we'd got there at 9:30 instead of 10:30. I think we were in the secondary rush of people shopping before the 20% off coupon expired at noon.

After JoAnns, we avoided crowded shopping centers. I coerced my mom into visiting Simply Fibers. I needed different needles to knit a Christmas stocking. The ones I'd found at Hobby Lobby were a drag to knit with. I went straight to the knitting needle display and picked out Addi Turbo needles.

I can't be in a yarn shop without looking at sock yarn. I did have an ulterior motive. I got my mom to pick out yarn for me to make her a pair of socks. The gift won't be a surprise, but I know she'll like it. She picked out the blue and green Trekking XXL on the right.

I selected some Jawoll to make a pair of knee socks and just couldn't resist the wine colored Tofusies. I've knit socks with Tofutsies and like the feel and I love red. I almost put the Tofutsies back, but was glad I kept it. When I checked out, I discovered the yarn was 25% off, but only if you bought at least $50 worth. Without the Tofutsies, I wouldn't have got the discount and would have paid more for my purchases.

Shopping With Someone Else's Money

Do you need some money to buy supplies for Project Linus?? If you do, let me know what you need and about how much it would cost because the Pioneers have some money that we need to spend.

I got the above email from one of my AT&T contacts last Thursday. My response: PL can always use yarn, fabric, etc. How much would you like us to spend?

I've been on a $200 shopping spree, courtesy of the Telephone Pioneers. Saturday I went to the local Hobby Lobby and got 2 small skeins of yarn on clearance for 46 cents each, 1 skein of Red Heart Super Saver (used a 40% off coupon) and some $2 a yard clearance fabric. Cute circus panels and a coordinating print.

This morning, I headed to Overland Park, Kansas. First to JoAnns where I got 4 cuts of fabric (on sale for 99 cents a yard) and 16 pounds of yarn. I used 40% off coupons on 2 pounds of yarn and my 10% AQS discount card on everything else.

After JoAnns, I went to Addadi's Fabrics on 87th Street in Overland Park. Addadi's specializes in selling a lot of fabric at very reasonable prices. I focused on the display of fabric that was $1.99 per yard or $1.50 if you bought the whole bolt. Since I was buying, a lot, for Project Linus, Mr. Addadi gave me the $1.50 price on the pieces where I only took part of the bolt. 60 yards of fabric later, I had a cute flamingo print, a baseball print, and colorful men's neckties on a white background. And lots of tone on tone prints to go with them.

Results of the shopping spree: PL acquired about 91 yards of fabric and 17 pounds of yarn and I have $222 worth of receipts to send to the Telephone Pioneers. I have pictures of the yarn and fabric, but Blogger is not cooperating. Maybe it will let me upload the pictures tomorrow. Update: Blogger finally let me upload the pictures. 8/29/2006 11:52 am