About Stash Reduction......

Um yeah.....technically I'm really pretty good about stash buying. I'm pretty good about it when it comes to how much $ I spend, on the other hand, I'm not so good about the QUANTITY.

As you all know by now, I LOVE thrifting and estate sales. My brother called this morning and told me I HAD to come to town. He was at an estate sale and was guarding about 20 bags of yarn for me. Of course I asked if it was wool and just as you would suspect the answer was, "Hell I don't know, but there's a lot of it. You better come. I'm standing here with about 20 garbage bags full of yarn for $5.00 a bag." I heard the woman running the sale talking in the background and she was telling my brother, "I know she had a woman in Mackinaw hand spin a lot of this" So I naturally said, "Buy it, I'm on my way!"

This is what I came home with, dutifully obeying all traffic laws cuz, well, I wouldn't have been able to explain my over stuffed car, unless of course the officer's wife was a fiber freak! I was squished again the drivers door, had to tunnel through to reach my gear shift, could see out of 2/3 of the windshield and could only use the side mirror.

28 boxes and bags on the front porch:




In the house and IdaMae is stymied. That's her chair over in the corner to the left:



Fleece, rovings, pencil rovings, and two tops:



On cones:



Neutrals. whites, blacks, and greys:



Blues and purples



Reds and pinks



Yellows and golds



Greens



Oranges, rusts and browns



Her color play? Balls of 3 - 8 different yarns twisted together






Projects? All of these bags, about the size of a grocery bag have color coordinated fibers



Examples of what is in each of the project bags:



3 kegs of mop yarn



Extra goodies:

Two ball winders and two little looms


More weaving needles than a fiber store would need!



Two egg beater type rug hooking thingies, 2 sets of tablet weaving cards, and two sets of groovy french curves that will make drawing out my swirl bags soooo much easier



Flowers looms



I also picked up a few fiber books, about 20 yards of burlap, and 9 pieces of burlap that are nearly room size, (8' x 10')

As best I can tell most of the above fibers are wool, cotton, linen, or silk. (If I couldn't readily tell, or if it wasn't labeled I did a quickie burn test) There was a bag's worth of acrylic but I didn't both taking a pic of that.

In each of the color groupings I have pictured above, there is at least 1 if not 2 sweater/jacket worth of nice soft hand knitting yarn in a solid color and perhaps enough for another striped garment. I assuming handspun, by the looks of it, some mostly solid and some beautiful tweedy stuff. I'll take good pix of that yarn up close and personal when I get a bit more organized. Plus there are all those project bags to dig through. I know right now by just glancing there are a several other sweaters coming out of those too. The rest is perfect for rugs, both cotton and wool, guess I'll be hooking again real soon!

Yes, I am going back tomorrow.....

The previous owner was a art teacher. Tomorrow I have to go and get at least a couple of the 100's of reams of paper, (name the weight and dimensions), 1000's of paint brushes, 100's of canvases, some of the clay/pottery/sculpting tools. And I have GOT to check out more books (oh yeah I got a few books today also) Funny thing, I didn't see any paints, just pastels (oil and chalk) but no paints!! Lots of her paintings, watercolors, oils, and acrylics, (which I HAVE to look through and buy) but no paints! Hmmmm See? I just HAVE to go back tomorrow!! I know, I'm a bad, bad, mother....I should have gotten stuff for my kids first, but hey, you all know how intoxicating the smell of wool is.....I lost my head. Besides, how am I going to send reams of paper and giant canvases to Savannah where Gillian goes to school?!? And Bart's fleeting interest in clay has waned since he started blowing glass, and he hardly ever draws anymore, so who knows if he'll ever get those urges again?

Oy, there is soooo much there! Supplies for so many things that I always wanted to try. And supplies for things that I use to do but replaced with other endeavors, not to mention the shopping list I have gotten from the kids......I'll need a U-Haul tomorrow!

BTW, in case you are wondering why on earth anyone would buy sooo many weaving needles, that's the way they do things here at estate sales. They group stuff together in one box and slap a price on it. Believe me I didn't want that many needles! LOL And true to form as estate sales go, I got all of the above pictured and mentioned items for......$100 When you buy a lot of something they just eyeball the pile and throw you a down and dirty price. They are more thrilled you're carting it off than worried about actually adding up all the prices.