Apparently I am not the only person who finds that autumn is the perfect season to clean house.

Yesterday, after running errands, I checked my email and found that there was one from my son’s trumpet teacher. It had nothing to do with trumpet, but was an offer of 5 bags full of yarn for a fixed priced.

The price was too good to pass up, so I didn’t.

Today, after I had picked up my purchase, I hauled everything from the car to my outdoor office. Working outside gave me two advantages: one, I would make decisions about color in natural light; two, the cat would not be helping.

Here is what I got for my money:

With the bags safely situated, I began the work of finding out just exactly what I had purchased. In less than an hour’s time, I had the swag spread out on the deck:

Pleased and overwhelmed, I began a second tier sorting where I determined which things I would keep and which I would donate to a nearby non-profit. As I made my choices, I cam across several items of note.

One was this pattern for a crochet doll:

The original kit came with a doll’s head and hands. The instructions promise that they are written in “plain English.” While there was no time to look over the instructions today, this artifact definitely made it to my keep pile.

The next crafting coup I discovered was this vintage wool from Red Heart yarn in a colorway called Sherbet Mix:

I had already purchased a skein or two of this same yarn from the trumpet teacher, so I was beyond delighted to find three skeins in my purchase as I now have enough (with careful planning) to make a felted tote from this yarn.

The next surprise I stumbled across were these two Colorama ripple afghan kits that had been sold at Woolworths:

The yarn was marketed in these pint-sized kits, each kit containing enough wool yarn to make one ripple strip. A full afghan required the purchase of 12 kits at the cost of one dollar apiece. Once the twelve strips were completed, they could then be joined to make a full-sized afghan.

The last item that caught my attention was this crochet artifact:

This stitch that comprises this swatch is variously known as “diagonal box stitch,” “crazy stitch,” and “brick stitch.” I found this excellent tutorial at Crochet Cabana for anyone unfamiliar with this technique who would like to learn it.

I have had many excellent crochet adventures with the fiber purchases I have made from my son’s trumpet teacher, and I expect that this purchase will be no exception.