Handwork: Thrift Store Bonus!

Some time ago I was at a thrift store.  Not at all an unusual occurrence. It is not possible to drive by a thrift store, unless I am not alone in the car.  SOME PEOPLE are not as fond of thrift stores/charity shops as I am BUT that same SOME PEOPLE usually goes in, and often finds something not to be passed up, also!  Enough said.

Anyway, on this particular visit I did my usual checking:  books, kitchen equipment, yarn and craft goods.  There was a small bag with a good-sized skein of yarn in it and a strange looking hard plastic gadget with a point-y spindle on it.  I was not sure about it but it was $2.00.  I almost walked by but then, on closer inspection, I saw there was a cable which I knew meant a circular knitting needle.  I looked one more time and realized it was a RED cable!  Red!  That meant it was a ChiaoGoo Red Lace circular needle!  Well!  I snatched up that bag so fast the wind almost knocked the person at the check-out station off his feet! 

You see, I had just previously purchased a US size 7 16-inch circular needle from these people/this brand to spend a morning knitting with a friend at the White River Yarn shop (which, sadly, had to close due to family concerns) and had LOVED the needles and decided to purchase more as need and finances  allowed.

This $2.00 purchase included:  nearly a full skein of nice-enough yarn, the ChiaoGoo 24" circular lace needle (onto which had been cast on about 72 stitches but no actual knitting done), as well as the Yarn Valet, which it what the funky spindle device turned out to be.

The needles I put into use immediately.  Yay for good knitting needles!  I have a lot of knitting needles.  These are now my favorites.

Yarn Valet with the price tag still on it.  I hate the sticky spots after removing tags so...it is not hurting anything, just aesthetics.

The Yarn Valet just sat on the little table by my rocking chair for ages.  Last week I was knitting a washcloth using a ball of yarn (Peaches and Creme) that had had the end of yarn wrapped around the ball. I usually knit from a center-pull ball, and imagined this is what I was doing.  Wrong.  When I had used the yarn up back to where it came off the ball, it was the outside pull not the center pull.  When I looked up from knitting, my eyes landed on the Yarn Valet.  I gave it a try. It works marvelously!  Just drop the yarn onto the spindle and start knitting!

Now I think I will just knit from the outside of balls or cakes of yarn.  No more digging into the center to try to find the beginning of the yarn.