Skip to main content

High Prices & Low Price Haul

Last week my guy and I went thrifting at two Goodwills. I was startled by the much higher prices on what yarn was available at the first near our home; there were some nice bagged assortments but they wanted $14.99 for three skeins. That's basically retail price for new. If I want to pay that much, I'll order it new from Amazon or buy it at WalMart.

I did find one lone bag of mostly superfine yarn for $7.99, which probably predated the price hike. Since Summer Nights has been discontinued, and I'm interested in working more with this yarn, I bought it. Summer Nights currently retails for about $8.00 per skein, and I don't need a lot of it, so for me this was a good deal.

We then moved on to Goodwill in Oxford, and the prices could not have been more different. They were so good, in fact, that I ended up buying three bags of yarn there.

The first had three partial skeins of variegated yarn and one brand new/unused cake of Mandala Ombre, all for $5.18. Mandala Ombre is currently $8.99 retail, so that was a very nice deal. I've also worked with this yarn in the past and like it a lot.

Four brand new skeins of Wool Ease Thick and Quick and one partial, all for $7.18. This bag alone is worth around $45.00. I definitely have enough yarn now to make my blanket -- so I have to stop collecting it! Ha. :)

Three unused skeins, two without labels, all for $3.18. The Red Heart Super Saver retails for $6.35 on Amazon. Also, that reusable mushroom bag at the beginning of the post is one I purchased at Goodwill Oxford (they don't give you shopping bags to reduce plastic waste.)

It is a little disheartening to see the high prices that some Goodwills are charging for yarn. I know thrifting is the only way some crocheters and knitters can afford to add to their stash -- at least until Goodwill hiked their prices up into the stratosphere. Since all this yarn is donated, cost-free, to Goodwill I think this is unfair, but I suppose making high profits matters more to some these days.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

On the Beach

Last week my guy and I went to walk Daytona Beach, which was mostly (and eerily) deserted. This is what our beaches used to look like when I was a kid. It was a beautiful day, cold and breezy but calm. It feels like 2026 is getting off to the right start.

Eight Plus Numbers

When I was looking up the retail on the small lot of yarn plus a tapestry kit I got a lot of surprises. This Red Heart Roll with It Sparkle skein in "Diamonds" was actually a cake that sells $10.99 on Yarnspirations. The lot included two Red Heart Super Saver Jumbo skeins, which retail for $8.99 each, and stuck in the center of the buff color I found a 5.5 mm crochet hook. This is a skein of 100% Icelandic wool, which can be really expensive. It's marked with a price tag of $7.00, and I found it selling for $8.00 online. The needlepoint kit is the biggest surprise of all. It makes a pillow, and hails from the UK, where it sells for £45.00 ($60.76 US). Since it's flamingos I definitely have to finish it if I can. Altogether my eight plus lot retails for $125.04; I paid $21.30 total for the lot with the buy-it-now option and one penny shipping. I indeed got a very nice bargain.

Not So Cheerful

Since I finished the January crazy-quilted tote for my calendar project I jumped back on making the Iris throw, working this time with Bernat Giggles in Cheerful Blue. From the start this skein seemed determined to give me trouble, not anything cheerful, as I had to contend with a big knot of yarn I tugged out along with the center pull strand (I didn't take a pic of that.) This yarn is 90% acrylic and 10% nylon, and come in a 3.5 oz. skein. Not sure why they added nylon to the acrylic, perhaps to make it softer. The color is nice, and it's fairly smooth, but it also splits easily and wants to pucker, pop and untwist, especially when you tear out stitches. Naturally I had to tear out two and a half rows to correct two mistakes, which aggravated me because the yarn was untwisting when I went to crochet it again. To add icing to this terrible cake, I ran out of the yarn on the final row. To keep the symmetry with the other sections I had to pull a compatible color fro...