Sunday, June 19, 2011

Yard Sale Ninjas

beach knitting!
The Yard Sale Ninjas, Annichi, Kayoko, ang Giuki (Number 1 DD, Number 1 DDIL and me), put their plan together after Giuki found the Craig’s list ad.  The ad said: Stash of 5 quilters.  Some cone yarn for machine knitting.  Mechanicsville Presbyterian Church.  Sat AM, 8:00 to 2:00 PM.  
It was Friday night, and the ninjas were at DD’s Virginia home, packing for a week at the Outer Banks.  They were supposed to load the cars, and head to North Carolina before 9:00 AM.  “We can do this,” said Giuki.
The target was 30 miles from Annichi’s house, where all three households were gathered for the final stage of the trip to Hatteras.  The ninjas were up and out in time to arrive at the sale before 8:00 AM.  There was a glitch.  Mapquest missed one the the vital turns.  We were in the parking lot at 8:04, and we were the 15th car.  Rats!  

The ninjas disguised themselves as mild-mannered, carefree browsers, who might pick up a  fat quarter.  Quietly, they inquired where was the yarn?  They wondered how many yarn customers they’d have to compete with.
Not to worry, though, there was plenty of yarn, and we did not have to break anybody’s arm to get to in.  The prices were so low that our normal dickering was pointless.  Only one of the sellers had cone yarn.   She had planned to get into machine knitting, but it proved too complicated, she said.  She also said she got rid of the machine years ago, so no need to ask her any thing about that.  We bought all but one cone of her yarn stash.   The cones  were priced at $1 per cone, except where there were multiple cones of the same yarn, which were bagged up and sold for $1 per bag.   We got wool/rayon, cotton 6/2, cotton flake 16/2, two diferent mohairs, and on and on and on.  The seller gave us the totes she had stored the yarn in.  The rest of our 45 minutes was spent acquiring a bag full of quilt fabric, including a lot of japanese inspired prints, and a bunch of fat quarters sold 3 for $1.  Also acquired another pasta queen ($4) and a bolt of upholstery material ($3).  Books and magazines rounded out our purchases.  The total for the 3 of us came to $57.  It was the Best. Sale. Ever.  The adrenaline jag lasted 2 hours.
I had taken the Brother kx350,  so we played with a couple of the yarns at the beach house:  a little hand transfer lace, a cowl collar, and a maternity number which we designed collaboratively, and I knit up and finished in about 3 hours.  
Designed from a 'two silk squares' sweater meets  Momma Turtle.

However, only one of us can wear that one.  We wound off balls of yarn for each of us, according to our interest.  The cotton fluff yarn featured in this sweater was also turned into a bunny pompom tail for ‘chicken butt’, the knit bunny hilariously named by the three year old.

DDIL is a size 6 in her other life. The sweater gauge came in at 4st x 6r to the inch on the kx350. For the back- Cast on 60, mock rib (EON) at tension 0.5 (that's right!) for 50 rows, hang the hem on the empty needles, (120 stitches now) and knit 90 rows at tension 5. take 29 stitches on left side, and 29 stitches on right side off on waste yarn. Those are the shoulders. Bind off the remaining center section. For the front, repeat, except knit 138 rows at tension 5. Graft the shoulders together, and sew the sides together starting 7 or 8 inches below the shoulder seam, and easing the extra front length to come out even at the mock ribbing. Put on pregnant model and admire.