Yarn Bargain Alert
Coned Cotton Yarn - Photo © Amy Solovay.
I went yarn shopping at Walmart last week, and found a few colors of worsted weight cotton coned yarn on sale for only $3.50 each. I got 3 14 oz. cones of variegated yarn at that price. Not bad. I would have bought even more if they'd had it. (They didn't.)
I can't guarantee that your local Walmart will have coned yarns on sale, or that it will even have coned yarns at all. If you're planning on making a trip there anyway, it might be worth checking the yarn aisle to see if you can find any, although I wouldn't recommend making a special trip just for that. By now, it is possible that all the bargain yarns have found happy homes.
Have you found any good yarn bargains in your neighborhood recently? If so, please give us the scoop on what you found and where you found it!
Comments
I find oodles of yarn at second hand stores — often bundled with someone’s project — usually a couple of inches long–I also find fine thread (20, 30, 50) that is in great condition. The harder the yarn/thread is to work with, the more likely it will get donated to a local thrift shop
Susan, I never know whether to be sad or delighted when I find those abandoned projects. I’ve come across some too, and even purchased (and finished) several of them.
I have a few more of those orphans that are still hanging around in my stash, waiting for me to do something with them. I should post pics of some of them. One of them is a purse-in-progress, made with vintage gimp. The gimp is gorgeous! I kind of want to frog the purse and use the gimp for something else, but so far I haven’t had the heart to do it. One of these days I will make up my mind what to do with it…
Walmart closed all the local yarn shops and now is getting ready to stop carrying yarn. I don’t shop there – haven’t for many years because of this very behavior.
Hi Morgen, Thanks so much for the comment.
I can appreciate what you are saying. I never once in my life bought yarn from Walmart until I started designing crochet projects for About.com. My own yarn stash mostly consists of vintage, luxury and handspun yarns. I would LOVE to use them more often, but it poses problems. Most handspun yarns are made in small batches, and many are one of a kind. You guys would never be able to re-create them.
Same with vintage yarns – some of them are really hard to find, and I don’t think any of you would want to have to chase them down just to make a project.
Same with the luxury yarns I have in my stash. I was lucky enough to have a career in textile design. I have yarns collected from a lot of really fabulous places, and a lot of them I couldn’t find again even if I wanted to buy more. So I know you wouldn’t be able to, either.
So, when I design projects for you guys, I decided to do my shopping at the places most people shop for supplies. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be buying yarn at Walmart, either.
I am curious – where do you shop for yarn now? This question isn’t just for Morgen – it’s for all of you. I’d really like to do my best to design projects using supplies that all of you can find! Even those of you who do shop at Walmart – what will you do if they stop stocking it at your location?
-Amy
Go online for yarn. I had an unfinished project for many months. Finally went on line and found the yarn. Glad to know that the reason I couldn’t find it EVER at any walmart is because they are not going to carry yarn any longer.
I buy a lot of yarn at Wal-Mart because my store carries it and have occasionally found a sale on some. The dept. manager at my store will special order colors of yarn that they carry the brand of for me also and then I don’t pay shipping just tax. I’ve heard that Wal-Mart is going to discontinue carrying yarn in many of their stores but not in stores that don’t have yarn stores locally. I don’t know but you can always send a letter to their headquarters about it. They are good about reading and responding to them.
Hi, I find at our local AC Moore plenty of yarn on their weekly sales. They compete with Michaels. Or I will go to yard sales looking for yarn. I make scrap blankets for the GoodWill or Salvation Army homeless. I also make allot of scarves to give to elderly. My stash fits in a double size closet with yarn up the walls and 2 large bins but I’m always on the lookout for more……
A couple of weeks ago the Hobby Lobby near my house put all of their clearance yarn on sale. All kinds of fun fur and stuff for 70 cents a skein.
Big Lots has an assortment of yarn for anywhere from $1 to $3 a skein. Last time I was in one, they had a yarn by Caron in pastel colors for $1.25 a skein. Don’t know what the size was, sorry, but it was pretty. I bought several skeins of cotton Christmas-colored yarn and several of the eyelash yarn for $1 each. The cotton yarn is for potholders and dish cloths, and the eyelash is going into Christmas gifts for the girls in my family! Check it out if you live near a Big Lots.