Yellow Tag Special

 

I stopped at a Savers thrift store... noticed as I went in that yellow tagged items were 50% off. I was looking for a booster seat for when the grandchildren come over for dinner. I browsed through the craft section of the books... no crochet books that caught my eye. Looked for the booster... Nope. Browsed the endcaps where the yarn is displayed. They had a lot of yarn, and to my surprise, there were a lot of yellow tags! Oh, well, there goes the yarn diet! 

I ended up getting 8 bags, a total of 3 pounds, 9.3 ounces of yarn, for $14.64

Here's a glimpse of what I got, and as I make items, I will come back and update this post. It's sort of like my Blair Farm Stitch Project  post from a couple of years ago. I will change the text describing the yarn to red once I've finished it. 

Bag 1 was $1.50 after the discount. Two balls of Red Heart Super Saver. One was 1.33 oz, the other 3.29 oz.

Bag 2 was $1 after the discount- mostly Red Heart Super Saver

.58 oz red, .91 burgundy, 1.7 oz burgundy, .46 orange, .44 yellow

.31 oz of Annie's cotton/acrylic blend in orange

1.65 for Bag 3 after the discount

a 1-oz skein of DIY yarn in brown and 3.73 oz of Annie's 100% cotton

Bag 4 was also $1.65 after the discount

5.2 oz of Homespun in Burgundy, a 2-oz skein of Peaches & Cream,

and 1.92 oz of a mystery fuzzy orange yarn

Bag 5 - also 1.65

Annie's acrylic in brown - 1.02 oz

Just Cotton in Green & White - 2 oz

Studio Sampler in browns - 1.78 oz

Bag 6 - $2 after discount

A green/blue pastel ombre - not sure if it's Red Heart Super Saver - 3.67 oz

Jamie Baby in Yellow - 2.03 oz

Baby Boucle in yellow - 1.55 oz

Bag 7 - my most expensive bag, but that big ball of gray boucle was worth it! 

$3 for the bag after discount

Boucle - 10.07 oz

Black Velvet 1.53 oz

Blue Cotton  1.71 oz

Fuzzy Gray worsted - 5.17 oz

Last but not least... oh, but it is one of the least priced... 

1.00 after discount

Small quantities of Red Heart Super Saver

Brown 1.45 oz

Green 1.17 oz

Yellow .53 oz

White .58 oz

Here they are caked up and sorted... acrylic yarn in the big bag

Cotton in the small bag

Orange, gray boucle, and gray fuzzy yarn are set aside for immediate projects! 😄

First project done - a hedgehog from the mystery orange yarn. 

Then I started a leggy frog, but I lost at yarn chicken.... I pulled some Bernat Boa from my totes, added some yellow eyelash yarn, and gave her some extra fancy legs! 

This big boy finished off the gray worsted from bag 7 and put a dent in the huge cake of gray/black/white boucle. The pattern called for sport yarn and a 2 mm hook... I used two strands of yarn and a K hook, so he's about 2 feet long! 

I kept going with the gray boucle and finished off these two: 

Then I added some light purple yarn and finished off the boucle with a gecko! 

I pulled the green and one yellow from bag #6 and had a green & yellow party... 

First, a squid. 

Then a gecko.

Then a cute little purse.

Then I polished it off with an axolotl

Some of the red went into this guy's sweater... Somehow some blue got added to the bag, and I used that in the pants. The bag was at 1 pound, 5 ounces before this project. 

 Misc. orange and yellow got used up for this scrappy pumpkin.

This used up the Studio Sampler from Bag 5.

The blue yarn that got added was used up with this guy. 

Bye-bye red! 

Yellow got used up for Butter Lambs... getting a head start on Easter! 

 Brown became a highland cow

The last of the red went into this guy. 

The small cake of black velvet yarn got combined with white to make this chicken. 

So, as of mid-December, I finished off the yarn. I'm sure I've missed some projects along the way. I have already sold $35 worth of items from the yarn, so I've got my money back twice over. 

Quick little Coffee Cup amigurumi

 Working on my scrap yarn "use it up" challenge for May, and working on filler for my May 13 craft show, I wanted to make a few little coffee cup amigurumi. 

I have a pattern somewhere...I did a quick search and didn't find it, so I just winged it and made up a pattern. 

For the yellow and blue cups, I used worsted weight yarn and an F hook. 

The red cup is two strands of worsted weight held together. I started with an L hook, but after my turning row, it seemed like the stitches weren't tight enough to hide the stuffing, so I went down to a K hook. That's why the top seems a bit narrower than the base. 

So, here goes: 

Cup: 

Round 1: 6 sc in MR (6)

Round 2: inc x 6 (12)

Round 3: (sc, inc) x 6 (18)

Round 4: (2 sc, inc) x 6 (24)

Round 5: sc in BLO, or do BPSC. The BPSC is a little harder to do, but I think it makes a better turning edge. (24)

Rounds 6-10: sc (24) 

Round 11: sc in FLO (24) Finish off using invisible finish. 

I didn't do the invisible finish on this one... see the gap? 

I was trying to use up some scrap yarn and made one cup where I put a Round 12 of sc after the FLO row... and I like the way it turned out... The coffee is at a slightly lower level. 

Handle: in cup color

Leaving a starting tail long enough to sew end of handle on (about 4"), chain 10. 

Starting in second ch from hook, sc x 9. Ch 1 and rotate your work. Make a sl st in the bottom of each chain. FO, leaving a tail for sewing. 

You are working both sides of the chain, so you end up with an end for sewing at each end of the handle. You can play around with how you sew the handle on... putting the ends closer together makes more of a rounded handle. Putting them further apart makes for a flatter handle. 

I played yarn chicken with this cup, and only had about 10" of yarn left for the handle. I pulled the yarn through and drew up a loop, then made chains until I only had 2" of yarn left. I used that to sew that end of the handle down. 

Coffee: 

With a shade of brown... 

Round 1: 12 sc in MR

Round 2: hdc inc x 12 (24)

FO, leaving a tail for sewing. 

Assembly: 

Embroider a face on your cup. 

I put my safety eyes between rounds 7 & 8, with 3 stitches between. You can play around with different size eyes, different facial expressions, eyebrows, etc. 

I cut a small plastic disc from a cottage cheese container lid, and put it into the bottom of the coffee cup to help keep the bottom flat. Stuff cup lightly. 

Sew coffee layer to cup, using the back loop of Round 11 on the cup. When you only have a few stitches to go, see if you need to put in a little more stuffing. 

Sew handle to side of cup. 

All done! These work up quickly and use scrap yarn, so I sell them for $5 for the small ones and $7 for the double stranded ones at my craft shows. 

They make a great project to go... if you don't want to lug around a bag of stuffing and your favorite yarn needle and safety eyes. You can make the cup, handle and coffee, and do the face and assembly when you're back home again! 

11/18 update... at a craft show earlier this month, someone said I should make a "flip coffee", where you flip it from happy to sad. I worked up two cups as above, put them together top to top, and crocheted them together... Yay! Flip coffee! 

I want to see if sewing them together makes a better top... One thing I found out is that worsted weight yarn can vary in wraps per inch... for this project, it's best to do a wrap count for your yarn and make sure the count matches. For the yarns above, the wpi count varied from 9 - 11, and putting a 9 WPI cup with an 11 WPI cup made it more difficult to flip. 

Also, the green/red cup in the center has an extra increase row in the base. I went up to 30 stitches instead of 24. 

May Goals

 Wow, it's May already... 

May 1st was a crazy day, with lots of juggling my schedule around. I missed the fact that I had a dentist appointment at 10 am, and fortunately I was able to reschedule to 2 pm, but that meant I had to rush around getting my errands and shopping done early. So, my May calendar is still waiting to be updated in my day planner, my spreadsheet needs to be updated, my inventory spreadsheet needs an overhaul, etc.

I can cross one item off the list by getting this post up with my May goals. 

1) My #amibookchallenge project for May is the Walrus from my Zoomigurumi book. DONE

2) My Crazy Critter Challenge DONE!

I updated my parameters for this challenge - expanding the color selections, colors and accents: 

	Color	Critter	Accent Color	Accent
1	Red	Bear	White	Stripes
2	Orange	Dog	Black	Spots
3	Yellow	Lizard	Red	Mohawk
4	Light Green	Snake	Yellow	Bumps
5	Dark Green	Monster	Green	Ruffle
6	Light Blue	Turtle	Blue	Eyelash Yarn
7	Dark Blue	Axolotl	Purple	Dreads
8	Purple	Chicken	Pink	Bulky
9	Pink	Cat	Gray	Tweedy
0	Black	Dinosaur	Orange	Novelty Yarn

I pulled up random number generator and asked for a number from 0 - 9999. I got

4125 - so I will be making a Light Green bear with a black ruffle. I'm thinking a tutu for the ruffle. The color will be a bit off the beaten path, but eventually I'll come across someone looking for a green bear! 

Pattern is Buddy Bear 2.0 by Craftably Ever After

3) Mini Mermaid - DONE

4) Airplane - DONE

5) Ramen Noodles - free pattern by Stingy Ding Ding - DONE

6) Corgi (my own pattern) 

7) Use it up scrap bag - I filled a gallon zipper bag with scrap yarn, and will try to use it up this month. - DONE

This was the last project. He used up the last four tiny balls of yarn! 

The Purple leggy frog on the bench and the two in front came from the scrap bag. 

I made up a coffee cup pattern to use up some small bits. 

Scrappy Snakes are always a good way to use up small balls of yarn! 

8) #amigurumiwars2023 Spotlight Designer - Little Muggle - DONE

I made her Little Kitty pattern

9) Desert Blossom Crafts AmiguriMay challenge - DONE

Half done, made a pink giraffe

Part two - an elephant