Thursday, December 07, 2006

An Interesting Find!

Oh well...I had to be out early yesterday and wound up being out all day.  Unfortunately, I can’t drive and post at the same time :)

I did make a fun find though…

The thrift shop had arts ‘n crafts stuff on sale.  Okay, more on sale than usual.  So after going through a huge bin filled with mostly acrylic remnants (no slur on acrylics - the Seeds sweater is being made out of Red Heart) I wound up with 11 balls of Columbia-Minerva Loop, a 75% kid mohair, 25% wool boucle, washable and mothproofed.  The ball band says the weight is 1 oz., and my rough determination of length is probably somewhere around 50 yards. (Aha!  I did find a reference for Loop here at Vintage Knits.  It doesn’t say when the yarn might have been manufactured - and I’m really curious! - but does indicate that my rough approximation of length was about right - 53 yards) These were pretty dingy and the outer layer of most of them was in bad shape - as though, maybe, a cat had used the stash to sharpen its claws?  But, the yarn didn’t smell (nothing had been using it as a nest or a toilet) and once the outer few yards had been removed, the inner part of the ball was in decent shape.





So I sat down last night and proceeded to unravel and sort out the stuff.  I lost about half of one ball and a few yards from most of the others - maybe 30 yards all together.  Then I got out my trusty and beloved swift and wound two hanks…





...which went into the sink to soak.  They were then washed, rinsed and hung up to dry :)





I don’t know yet what I’m going to do with this stuff.  I have worked with boucle before (many, many years ago) and it can be a real bear.  But this is such nice stuff that I’d like to find a project for it.  There is also the possibility of dyeing it, though I imagine I’ll leave one hank in its original color.  See how nicely it goes with The Jade Sea?

Chatters is on this evening!

Hope to see you there :)

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1. omg, do nothing until you can find the appropriate project to use that combo of jade sea and ‘found’ yarn- that is gorgeous-

   i am rushing to finish work due tomorrow which i carefully chose to think was due in another 10 days- bah, humbug! w o r k is definitely one of those blasted 4-letter words!

   stay happy-

   Posted by  on  12/07  at  04:17 PM
   Location : shivering in east texas- how strange..



2. Barb - Kind of a nice coincidence, that color, isn’t it?  I was pleasantly surprised :)

   I’m real sorry to hear about the work thing - I hope you get past it quickly and as painlessly as possible!

   Posted by Robbyn  on  12/07  at  05:12 PM
   Location : Being Jade's foot-warmer :)



3. Oooooohhhhhh....pairing them together for a pair of luxury mittens. You know me, mittens are always on the brain. It is a great find.

   Posted by Maureen  on  12/07  at  06:44 PM
   Location :



4. Maureen - The color co-ordination wasn’t evident until the yarn was washed but you’re right - together they would make spectacular mittens!

   Posted by Robbyn  on  12/07  at  07:26 PM
   Location : Being Jade's foot-warmer :)



5. from the graphics on the ball band my guess would be mid to late 60s or early 70s.
   wonderful serendipitous find!

   Posted by catsmum  on  12/09  at  12:20 AM
   Location : OZtralia



6. Catsmum - Thanks for the analysis.  Based on nothing but the band colors (and a very, very vague memory of when this kind of yarn was last popular, I would had put it in right about the same time frame you did.

   It really was very good luck - the yarn turned out to be 25¢ a ball - and worth every penny!

   Posted by Robbyn  on  12/09  at  10:54 AM
   Location : Rolling in the stash...

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