Knitting gods meet garage sales

by knittinginatree

It’s garage sale season; the time of year when someone else’s trash becomes your treasure. For us this means that on a Saturday morning I fill up a to go cup of Joe and wander around on foot through our neighborhood. Mostly I like the opportunity to meet new people who are usually on their best behavior and hang out in their yard without being accused of trespassing. It’s a way to find out more about this community we are somehow a part of and also a curious moment when people reveal to the world all the items they’ve been storing in their homes that they no longer need, have room for, or, want to see again. I also like the notion of re purposing items from my hood because I think that everything you could ever need can be found within your own neighborhood with one exception–yarn. I’ve never kept an eye out for yarn simply because it’s something you don’t find and if you do it’s of the acrylic persuasion and not really worth adding to the stash. But, these past two weekends, I’ve had a bit of luck. Could it be that the knitting gods approve of garage sales?
Weekend 1, I stumbled upon some Lion Brand organic cotton and a respectable skein of wool-ease.

Okay, so these aren’t so fancy of yarns, but I happen to like the Lion Brand Organic Cotton and the woolease will be perfect for beard making. I don’t remember exactly what I paid for these, but I know it was under $3.
Weekend 2, happened to knock my socks off. I was wrangling through some clothes items and S came up to me and said,”Ehem, why aren’t you looking at the yarn?” “Yarn? What yarn?” Well, I tell you any assumptions I’ve had about what one can find at a garage sale are now gone, because here is what I found.

From the top, Wool/Acrylic blend (I’m kind of in love with turquoise these days so I was persuaded by the color but the yarn is super soft too).
Hand dyed, hand spun angora blend. The photo doesn’t show it well but it sparkles.
And finally, hand spun angora. All for the price of $45.
The lady selling the yarn said that the angora hanks came from a spinner in Vermont but didn’t have any more information on them.
There is a sad part to this story, the seller had given up completely on knitting. I tried a bit to persuade her otherwise but she said that part of her life was over. She seemed happy to share her stash with me, so I tried to be accepting of her choice.

So, I just wanted to share that lately I really have been believing that everything one could ever need can be found within their neighborhood. Have you had any great garage sale finds this season?