Salvo's + Uniting Care Dandenong

Stockings (new!) $1 each @ Uniting Care. There are LOTS more so if you need any stockings make sure you check this oppy out!

This week it was orange tickets at 50% off (every week a different colour tag is 50% off)... I never usually manage to grab any such tagged items, but this week I made an effort to actually take notice of what was an orange label item! I got this lovely black and white sheer Jump business shirt which I got for only $3

I got the blue necklace for $4.99 and the wooden/shell one for $2.99

From the Salvo's I got the teapot $2.99. At Uniting Care I got the milk jug $1.50, the ramekin 30c, and the butter dish (Maxwell & Williams new!) for $4

Frankston Opping

These finds are from a trip to Frankston in December, to take advantage of one of Saver's half price garment Mondays. There are enough op shops in the main shopping area to make a day trip a worthwhile exercise - I think I visited five, including Savers. Above are a jumper and cardigan which I intend to deconstruct for the yarn. You can't ever have too much yarn :)

The purple cardi has giant snaps down the front, which I'll also reclaim and repurpose. I'd priced snaps about this size in the haberdashery section a while back and they retail for at least $1 each, and I have six of them now. Both knits were two or three dollars each.

A large scarf featuring a gorgeous print of horses. I tried to convince the checkout operator that scarves are apparel, but apparently they're considered accessories and not included in the half price offer. Still a bargain at $3.95, I think. I may turn this one into a halter top, if I can bear to cut it.

A cowboy motif doona cover that I'll use as fabric. I couldn't resist the cute print. Enough here to make a shirt, a skirt and still have some left over. Can't remember the price exactly, but it was
about $5.
A gorgeous green caftan, for me to wear in the heat. Cool and comfortable now that I've altered it to my satisfaction: it was a little tight over the Rack of Doom, so I let it out at the side seams only to find that this rendered it rather shapeless in other areas. So I added a couple of waist ties to tie at the back and now I love it. $9 at Savers.

An "Eight Wives of Henry the VIII" tea towel, to be refashioned into a tote bag. $1.95.
(Edited: Obviously that was meant to be "Six Wives of Henry VIII" - I think Melbourne's hot and muggy spell has damaged my brain)

An Isle of Wight tea towel, also to be refashioned into a tote bag. Also $1.95. Both tea towels from Savers.

On the same trip, I also bought ten balls of black mohair yarn, at $1 a ball in St Vinnies, plus a
set of dominoes for $2 in another op shop (can't remember which, memory failure due to hot weather). Like I wrote earlier, can't have too much yarn! The dominoes are intended for a jewellery project I have in mind, and they came in a little wooden box that I'll use for something else. A good day.

Recycled yarn

Before: imagine this op shop jumper is twins - I bought two of them for $1 each in Oakleigh Salvos. Abercrombie & Fitch, womens size large (perhaps that's why they were in the op shop - this looks like a small to me!) with bonus gorilla arms, 40% lambswool/30% nylon/27% acrylic/3% polyester.

After: this is one of the jumpers deconstructed into its constituent yarn, and partly reconstructed into a pair of Bloke socks. There are little navy blue squiggles of yarn throughout the house, turning up in the cat's food bowl, and even one or two magically transported into the backyard, byproducts of the unravelling process. Undoing a jumper is strangely satisfying, both in a destructive and constructive way: watching the progress of frogging versus the steady growth of the new balls of yarn. By the time I undo the second jumper I will have a surfeit of navy blue.

Let's take a little gaze into my crystal ball...ah, the mist is clearing...I see...navy blue knitting...socks for me, handwarmers, maybe a beanie...lots and lots of navy blue knitting!

Lemony goodness

I haven't done much op-shopping lately, due to the press of study. BUT, having finished classes last week, I indulged in a little foray to the Salvos in Oakleigh as a detour/reward after paying some bills. The book above I'd have bought for the title and cover alone - it's so fabulous! - but it was a good read, too, so bonus (I devoured it in an afternoon - haven't done that in a very long time). There's a certain type of book that always catches my eye: 1930s through to early 1960s, great evocative covers, creamy paper, slightly musty, esoteric subjects. This fits into that category and will join my other treasures, mostly also op-shop sourced.

I also succumbed to the lemony goodness of the above cotton jumper. I've been wanting to knit with cotton, having learned to knit just a (relatively) short while ago, and kept an eye on the op-shops racks for a likely candidate to de-construct and refashion. This jumper looked to have the necessary 'zipline' construction to frog stitch back into yarn, and it took me just another afternoon (and a lot of wiggly yellow wormlets distributed liberally all over my person and the living room) to rip it back into its original constituent, pictured below. I foresee a pair of sunny yellow socks and perhaps several lemon dishcloths in my future knitting.

A grand total of $7.80, since it was pensioner's day :)