Mike and I went down to Goodwill today to check out their flagship store. It’s impressively large, about the same size as Thrift Town, and has a good selection of quality clothes, almost as good as the Goodwill in Palo Alto/Mountain View (where one can score new or nearly-new (I got one with the price tag still on!) Jones New York and other top-label suits for about $15). We only had a short time to check it out before they closed, but it’s definitely on my list for thrift shops to scout out. I buy most of my clothes at thrift shops since I like classic styles in neutral colors, and the Bay Area is wealthy enough that stuff like silk and cashmere turns up on a regular basis. Once you’ve paid $4.49 for a nice silk shell, it’s really hard to go back to paying $80+ for one. And it saves more money for peacock feathers and yarn!
But I’m getting ahead of myself. When I went in, what was the very first thing I saw upon entering the store? Yes, an entire yarn display FULL of cones of fine yarns, priced at 99 cents a cone! I immediately made a beeline for it and went carefully through all six shelves of it, looking carefully at the yarns and wishing I’d brought a cigarette lighter. I finally bought two cones of a metallic silver yarn, two cones of what looked like white cotton, and two cones of what seemed to be some sort of soft animal fiber. I took it home and did burn tests, and what I have seems to be about five pounds of 5000 ypp mercerized white cotton, and a pound or two of some unknown 2/28 Nm soft wool yarn in slate gray. Plus two pounds of metallic silver yarn, all for a whopping $6 (!).
Oh, and a very nice Classiques Entier (Nordstrom house brand, I think) black silk shell for $4.49.
I am definitely going back to this Goodwill again.
Meanwhile, I have just joined a Bay Area study group on Alice Schlein’s book The Woven Pixel, which is meeting on Saturday. I worked through part of The Woven Pixel awhile back, but have more or less forgotten all the techniques, meaning I will probably get up early either tomorrow or Saturday and frantically work through the appropriate sections in an attempt to catch up.
Plans for the weekend:
- Saturday: study group in the AM, then south to the Peninsula for a three hour ride. Refine my muslin for the peacock feather tutu.
- Sunday: finish the pattern for the peacock feather tutu. 1.5-2 hour ride. Finish weaving the goldenrod shawl. Cut out and sew together the bodice for the peacock tutu, getting it to the point where I can sew the feathers on.
That’s kinda ambitious, but I think it might just be do-able.
The Goodwill down here in San Mateo (it’s about a block away from Camino, a bit south of 92) also has a pile of $1 yarn cones, although they’re all identical– a slightly slubby denim-blue; I carried off a small sample to burn-test at home, but the cats seem to’ve disappeared it for me.
Small volunteer-run thrift shops can have really spectacular stuff, since they’re less likely to have an expert on hand who can identify unusual objects; I’ve been gradually accumulating uranium-glass items from those places.