The Penguin Pages: May 2021

It was a bright and sunny day....

I got a FB message telling me there was a garage sale at the Blair Farm, a small family farm about three miles from my house. I would pass right by it driving from work to my daughter's house. The message said "there's lots of yarn."

Oh, but I'm trying to stick to a yarn diet... and my Etsy shop has been dead lately... I'm currently on day 14 of a sales drought... a new record for 2021. Lowest Etsy sales since November 2019. I really don't need any yarn right now. After paying 2020 sales tax and a renewal for my Office software, my net profit is the lowest it has been in a long time. You know, I could rattle off plenty of reasons why I should just keep on driving and pass up the garage sale completely.

So, did I stop there after work? Of course! Did I buy yarn? Sheepishly shrugging shoulders... yes ma'am, yes ma'am, two bags full.

Well, there was a sign saying "Fill a bag and make an offer!"

So I filled two bags and offered $30. They accepted.

Quick pic of the yarn

Once I got the yarn home and emptied out the bags, I thought I probably could have offered less. They had $1 per skein posted, and I was trying to keep track of skeins as I put them into the bags. I figured a 25% bulk discount would be a good figure, so I was shooting for about 40 skeins. I don't know if I hit that. Some were partial skeins, and I picked up a few bags of scrap balls. I will have a more complete figure once I get the yarn inventoried. (Total yarn weight = 140.9 ounces. If calculated at 4 oz = 1 skein, it's 35 skeins. If calculated at 5 oz per skein, it's 28. So I was pretty close to $1 per skein.) **June 12 correction... I missed a 4-oz skein in my inventory, so it was 145 ounces.

A little more organized

My shopping wasn't all that organized... I grabbed yellow for butter lambs, green for geckos, baby yarn because I like to combine colors with multiple strands of yarn, purple because I like purple, pink because I knew I was running low, browns because I've been making a lot of dogs lately. Scrap yarn because I knew I would use it.

I went out to the porch to do burn tests. All the yarn in the plastic bag is wool.

I guess I'll be making some wool dryer balls!

As I was contemplating my purchase, I thought it would be fun to track the items I make from this yarn, to see how much of a return I get from my expenditure. If all goes as planned, I will be a vendor at the East Aurora Street Fest on July 24th (9 weeks away). I'm trying to focus on having an inventory of my best-sellers for my table.

Sea Turtles

Beagles

Dachshunds

Geckos

Turtles

Scrappy Snakes

Baby Dragons

Chameleons

Baby Owls

So, for the next 9 weeks, I will be focusing on using up this yarn to make items for my shop and eventually Street Fest. I'm calling it The Blair Stitch Project because I bought the yarn at the Blair Farm. I will be updating on a regular basis as I finish projects... it will be interesting to see how much return I can get from a $30 garage sale haul. (Oops, Blair Stitch Project is a shop in the UK. I will hashtag my finished items on Instagram with #blairfarmstitchproject )

There was a pair of thumbless infant mittens in one yarn bag... so I will add them to my mitten listing... so there's already one project added to the list.

I have two projects started that I want to finish up before really diving into The Blair Stitch Project (DONE), but I'm thinking a little turtle or a gecko might pop off the hook as a break from the bigger projects! But first, I need to inventory it! (DONE)

Finished Projects

1. Green infant mittens

2, 3, 4 - Baby Owls & Nest

5 - Little Turtle

6 - Baby Dragon

7, 8 - Baby owl in nest

9 - Another baby dragon.
(I went to get finished dragons to get a group shot for Etsy, and couldn't find the red dragon that my Etsy listing said I had, so I pulled red yarn from the bin and made another!)

10 - had fun with a striped monster!

11 - Tan gecko with pink stripes.

I only have a few ounces left from the 7 oz bag of scrap yarn!
I focused on using up that yarn on Wednesday night... and finished it off with #12 - scrappy snake, and #13-14 tacos.

My sales drought was finally broken this morning (5/27)! Yeah! I sold the ankylosaur that I finished about two weeks ago... so I pulled yarn to start a new one!

#15 was the new Ankylosaur - in baby green with a tan shield.

#16 was a gecko, also in baby green

#17 was a Mermaid cat with an ombre tail

#18 - Mermaid tail with Retro Stripe yarn and pink body/head

All three of these projects were completed during a Memorial Day road trip with family.

#19 - Mood Octopus in baby green and pink

#20 was a new design I'm working on... beach bunny

Just the shirt is from the garage sale yarn, but he counts toward the total!

#21 - Bud the Dragon

He was totally made from garage sale yarn, and used up a lot of little balls of white yarn!

#22 - Poppy the Purple Panda

The white and purple are garage sale yarn.... I pulled the gold and lavender from my scrap box for her flowers.

Since I had the white and the purple out, I made a Ballerina Kitten (#23) .

Kept the purple theme going with #24, a purple gecko.

The purple trend continues with # 25, Dexter

He's 12" tall and took a long time to finish... but I feel accomplished to have completed him!

Oops, somewhere in there I made a half-pint penguin with the purple... so he'll be #26. He's bottom left in this purple collection pic.

Back to highland cows for a bit... #27 is Cam. One skein of yarn was in the colorway "Camel", so he gets his name from that.

#28 is Pinkie the Axolotl

I'm not even sure what an axolotl is, but I heard they are trending due to

Minecraft... which I've never played.

#29 is another highland cow... Meet Pinkie!

#30 was a quick little project to be added to an order as a "travel snack" for a gecko... a mini donut!

31 - "one good axolotl deserves another"

32, 33, 34 - Sea Turtles

Now I am done with the green, camel and pink yarn...

Just started a bigger project with the purple and ombre.

35 - FunnyBee Blue

I got bored with a couple of big projects and needed to whip up something fast, just to feel like I've made some progress... so I made a bee!

#36 - still working on that blue yarn, with a blue sea turtle

#37 was a custom order... but I used yarn from the garage sale to complete it... A dachshund!

38 - a blue axolotl

39 - ankylosaurus

#40 - Purple Dragon

#41 - Jazz the Sea Turtle

(Still using up that purple and variegated)

#42 - Jazz Jr

Purple and multi-color yarn are all gone now! So, I pulled out a few new colors to work with...

#43 - Emerald Green Gecko

Life got busy with a new design, extra projects at work, and getting ready for a big craft show... but I finally got around to #44.

Elbie the Baby Dragon uses two strands of pastel ombre baby yarn held together. He's such a cutie.

#45 was a quick project to send along as a surprise gift with an order...

46 - Another Ankylosaurus

47 is a dragon named Eustace.

48, 49, & 50 were travel snacks to go along with Etsy orders. The geckos got donuts... Fergus got a bale of hay!

#51 is a catnip mouse made with some wool yarn that I picked up at the garage sale. I have a quart bag full of wool... more mice coming!

52, 53, 54... more catnip mice

#55 was fun... a little chicken!

56-60 were more catnip mice, made at Street Fest.

61 was an axolotl using the pastel variegated yarn (there was a lot of that!)

#62 was Dixie the Dolphin, which used the variegated pastel yarn mixed with sold color stripes.

#63 - Taffy the Beluga Whale, using the pastel variegated yarn with white yarn.

#64 was a flip octopus... happy on one side (with the variegated pastel... still chipping away at that), angry with the peach side

#65 was another use of the variegated yarn: a Hug Monster!

Orders, restocking, pattern tests and contest entries have kept me busy, so I haven't done much with the garage sale yarn lately... but I got back to it this week:

#66 - a pink dragon