Is it a bargain, is it, is it??

I can never make up my mind about whether something bought cheaper than usual with an idea in mind is still a bargain if it doesn’t fit that purpose but works for something else that you might not even have had in mind.

Do you follow me ……. I know I got lost when I began to think about it 😊😊

I have enough wool/yarn on hand to keep me and my charity knitting going for a very very long time so the last thing I need is more.  Great thought but oh so hard to put into practice.  Just every now and again I see it on special and cave in……as far as I’m concerned really really good specials shouldn’t be allowed….they do a great deal of  harm to my self control lol

And so it was early last year when I spied fabulously priced balls of 8ply in ‘boys’ colours just right for what I had in mind for my donations to charity.  Less baby sizes and more 2 – 4 yr old sizes.

I started the first one thinking the yarn had a strange feel to it but couldn’t put my finger on what was different.  Finished the rib and began the body….  stocking stitch…knit one row purl one row.  Well it was stranger still, I checked the ball band, yes I was using the recommended needle size but it was tighter/firmer than usual so I ripped it out and began again with larger pins.  Still looked awful so pulled it all out and tossed it to one side and quietly carried on at myself about money down the drain.

As an aside here I wasn’t too happy with the place I was donating to – over the previous year or more I’d sent in via the usual pharmacy drop off place 3 boxes of baby and toddler woolies complete with sender info each time expecting the usual thank you email. It’s reassuring to know your donation has arrived and nice to be thanked.  Later it transpired they’d had changes in leadership and as well as myself many many donors hadn’t been acknowledged but at the time I was ropable and found another group who gave more locally than the other.

Well to cut a long story short my ‘new found group’ disbanded at the end of last year.  Another smaller group has stepped into their place – not so many contacts but with the same aims and objectives.  Helping others cope with winter.

At the moment they are concentrating on blankets – squares aren’t my idea of fun but as they say ‘in for a penny, in for a pound’, I’ll dig out some odments and get going.  Their preferred size is 25cm/10ins, much bigger than ones I’m familiar with.  50 stitches – 104 rows in garter stitch.  And here is where we get to the end of my tale.

Remember those 100gm balls I tossed aside – well even though there was plenty of other stuff I could have used I decided to give one of them a go – and it knitted up like a charm.  In garter stitch that is.  The ball band describes it as 100% Polyester not 100% Acrylic like most everything else I use – maybe that’s why it feels different.

I bought 3 colours x 2 balls plus a big 200gm ball of the blue – the larger size square means I only get 2 out of the 100gms with a little over.  So 16 solid squares and probably 1 multicoloured ifrom the left overs – that’s not what I envisaged knitting with my ‘bargain purchase’. I’m just happy there’s someone else who enjoys piecing them together – bargain or no bargain that’s certainly not what I signed up for 😊😊

Have you ever turned one disaster into something unexpectedly special?