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In mid November, I was in Nashville for our glorious Arne & Carlos weekend at MDK World Headquarters.

I had dragged my now-very-large Temperature Blanket-in-progress on the plane with me, because I am absolutely going to finish it by the end of the year. As the chief instigator of the 2022 MDK Temperature Challenge, how could I not?

I was getting down to the nubs of a couple of my summer colors—Barbara and Zinnia, if you must know—and I’m nothing if not frugal (OK—in some things). So I asked Ashley if we had any not-for-sale loose balls of Felted Tweed in the house, so that I wouldn’t have to take my skeins from the inventory of a small business that is trying to make its way in the world.

Friends. Ashley has a bin for that. She directed me to the shelves in her lair that have tidy bins of beautiful yarns that are not in inventory for various reasons: lack of labels, sample yarns, and leftovers from workshops, to name a few of the reasons a ball of perfectly delicious yarn might find itself in Ashley’s bins.

Still life with Yarn, Bins, and a Revolution Tray

You might think that a person who has access to a warehouse full of yarn to meet all her legitimate knitting needs would be unmoved by a few bins of the stuff to paw through, but you would be wrong. So wrong.

I dived in and spent one of the happiest half hours of my life, blissfully rummaging. I came up with so many balls and partial balls of Felted Tweed that I felt they should have their own bin, and I briefly considered expanding my temperature blanket shade card. But there were also other fun things: from Freia Minikins and Shawl Balls without their bakery boxes, to sample-knitting skeins of Big Wool and Woolfolk Tynd.

SUCH FUN.

I’m sure that candy shop owners probably go through their kids’ Halloween hauls with as much greedy excitement as the next person. When you love something, you love it.

A Giveaway!

The prize? A surprise package of fine yarns from Ashley’s Bins, selected by Ashley herself.

How to enter?

Two steps:

Step 1: Sign up for our weekly newsletter, Snippets, right here. If you’re already subscribed, you’re set. We have a new option for texting, so if you’d like an occasional text from MDK, click on that link to sign up—and you’ll get a coupon code good for 10% off your next MDK order.

Step 2: What is the yarn or other thing you would most like to find in a happy half hour of rummaging? Let us know in the comments.

Deadline for entries: Sunday, December 11, 11:59 PM Central time. We’ll draw a random winner from the entries. Winner will be notified by email.

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1007 Comments

  • Yarn! Most definitely yarn! A close second would be my collection of glass beads. I have a “thing” for glass beads. I simply love the way glass beads feel. I also am a color nut. So – taking in the variety of color makes my heart sing. Honestly – crafting supplies – because I just thought hmm I love my embroidery threads too!

    • I am having a love affair with the Kaffe Fasset colors of felted tweed yarn. A ball from this collection would surely zip me up!

    • Love all things Freia

    • Would happily spend a half hour or more with Atlas!

    • Unusual yarn or fiber that I wasn’t looking for and didn’t know I needed until I saw it. A drop spindle. An old colander. Pretty ribbon. Such fun to rummage!

    • Soft cotton yarn for a blanket or shawl.

    • Felted tweed. I keep looking at the wonderful colors in the Shop online but have never taken the plunge.

    • Probably self striping yarn. Lots of it.

    • I love finding lace weight mohair. So fun to add to other projects!

    • Something with silk in it. I just love the way silk makes yarns that shine and drape so wonderfully. Or something yellow or orange…I rarely purchase those colors and I’d like to try something out of my comfort zone.

    • Enough high cashmere percentage yarn to make a sweater. Or yak. Or really any incredibly soft natural fiber yarn.

    • I have a large yarn stash. The outside of the tubs are all labeled with contents, but what I really would like to find under my tree is a complete list with the tube numbers so I can better find what I want.

      • Ravelry’s stash feature is a perfect way to track a large stash. Although you do have to enter what you have, so it’s not as easy a just finding a list under the tree! I love “shopping” my stash for a new project right from my computer, and once I’ve found good options, I know exactly which bin holds my choices.

        • Fun to read what others are dreaming of…I’m hoping for bamboo or yak or something like that

    • Balls of silk sari ribbon! Dark chocolate in the freezer. Anything thought to be lost and then was found.

      • Ooh love the sari silk ribbon! I’ve been having fun with that lately.

    • A couple of precious balls of long-discontinued yarn. Heritage wool tweeds, old colorways, strange weights, bring them on to challenge my mind to bring them onto my world.

      • Yes! All the oddballs, bring them on! I was thrilled when my dad brought me 3 boxes of wool yarns from an auction, most are long discontinued with only enough for small projects – or mixing with stash yarn. So many new ideas!

      • Any color yarn that is bright and colorful and says “let me make your day”.

        • Lonely single skeins, perfect for a hat of pair of socks!

        • Greens, blues, each tones in sport or worsted weights for gift projects for family.

    • Suri Suri and more Suri alpaca. In all the colors!! I love to add it to all projects.

    • Those freia yarn balls keep capturing my eye for sure. I am trying to incorporate more color in my wardrobe so i would love to rummage for colors i don’t normally wear like orange. Oh! You know what would be fun. When you rummage around and two unexpected (or more) colors land next to each other and you are unexpectedly thrilled at the resulting combo

      • I am loving colors that surprise and delight me. I am pushing the boundaries of my usual color choices to embolden my wardrobe.

      • I would love to find balls of self striping sock yarns in bright colours or shawl balls that stripe. Anything bright and cheery. I’m also a sucker for antique notions like stitch holders or needle holders. Always good to dream

        • Any beautiful tweedy yarn dk or worsted bright and cheerful!

        • Urth yarns. Harmony worsted all the way down to self striping fingerings or sock yarn.

        • I would like to find a treasure chest of mohair. I’ve recently recognized a love of anything mohair.

        • I’d love to find something with a lot of color shifting. Maybe enough for a scarf? Weight optional!

    • I’d love to find angora yarn and 1/2 skeins of felted tweed; it’s perfect anyplace you add it! Colored yarns separated into color-like bins do you can rummage to find an exact shade. Wayward stitch markers you known those one list or one off treasures. Love all the bits and pieces… Also swatches that have been done and cast aside for whatever the reason… one more swatch to add to that blanket, or patchwork pillow. I’m a color junkie! At home all my yarns are separated into their own plastic bins like drawers each drawer containing only blues etc. Find the shade you need without sifting through it all. Yes! I’m ready for a MDK surprise email! My drawers are ready for a little more magic.
      Carol Goldstone- Stamford, CT

      • Right now I’m dreaming of a floaty red mohair shawl so I’d love to find a few skeins of the perfect yarn for that dreamy thing!

      • Yarn, especially blue. Just the thrill of the find, the colors, the textures, and if it’s on sale…..need I say more.

        • I especially *love* rummaging a button collection, or carefully combing through a rat’s nest of yarn and detangling, and winding all the remnants into neat little balls and butterfly skeins. I remember digging through the enormous scrap bin in the fiber department in college, finding choice castaway bits to weave interesting texture into a tapestry piece I had on the loom.

      • I would love to find lettolopi!

        • Yarn of any type. Embroidery thread all colors. Quilt packs all designers. And of course acrylic paints and ceramic anything.

  • remants of yarn used by those who came before me….. and old recipes!!

  • Dk weight sock yarn of 80% wool and 20% nylon that would keep me warm with mesh cloth running shoes in the rain and durable enough to wear around the house when I kick the shoes off.

  • I’m making a log cabin patchwork blanket with the leftovers from my temperature shawl. I’m now in the stage of playing chicken with how many rows I can add to two ends to make it more rectangular so that it will cover my toes when I’m cozy in my chair—knitting, of course. The colors I’m using for these rows are Scree and Barbara in temperature shawl garter ridges.

    • Agree—Scree and Barbara together just has me at hello!!

    • That sounds so beautiful. Scree and Barbara!

      • Yarn first of all, no matter what brand or fiber (love those LYS sale bins)! But for this fantasy scenario, buttons would be a close second. I’m having a harder and harder time locating beautiful buttons in my area.

  • Soft, smaller gauge, natural fiber yarn. I love various textures and colors and finding ways of working them together. I often lay out my stash and see what might play together for gifts or donations.

    • I’d love to find some gorgeous sock yarn that a previous person has thoughtfully split into equal balls already! I love knitting scrappy socks, but I still want them to match!

      • After rummaging through my stash, I love to feel inspired. I sometimes rummage through my stash for that reason.

  • That’s the fun of rummaging…not knowing what will suddenly make you smile from ear to ear!

    • I would love to rummage through Ashley’s bins for anything MDK sells or a box of DG Strongs favorite books.

      • Cashmere. Once you’ve knit with cashmere, ain’t no turning back. Variegated or tonal would be sublime.

  • Wow! Kay in some ways that’s a tough question! It’s like getting a child to pick one candy in a candy store. However IF I had to chose one yarn to find in the bin I’d want to find some kid silk haze as it’s such an amazing accompaniment to knitted socks and at the moment I’m addicted to adding this yarn to all my knitted winter socks. It makes the socks extra cozy and my feet simply say “aaah” when I put them on!

  • Since I don’t USUALLY swatch, I am sure I would not find any swatches in there. All my yarn is in bins in my little house and it is always a treat to get all the bins and drawers of yarn out when I am putting together my next project. Happy times.

  • Color! I’m having so much fun with Nancy Bates’ Knitting the National Parks – each hat is a small painting

    • Me too. I’m knitting the Grand Canyon hat.

      • I too love the National Parks book. I ended up using it as inspiration but creating my own pattern for a gift hat for a fisherman. My next hat will be the Sequoia hat – with fond memories of my college summer, working in the Mariposa Grove in Yosemite NP, many years ago! Atlas yarn would be perfect for it.

    • Ngl, it’s books for me, specifically anything by Oliver Sacks. For some reason I feel the urge to own everything he wrote and anything related. On a Thanksgiving visit to see my sister and mom in Silver Spring, Maryland, we did our usual trip to the Friends of the Library (if you can you should go! It’s amazing, and only one of the city’s used bookstores and let me tell you it makes me jealous), and they had TWO of his books. In entirely different sections. It is my favorite place to unearth things, sorry Visiting Nurse Sale (yarn, huge twice yearly rummage sale).
      I think it’s the overwhelming feeling of too muchness. I like that in a bookstore.

      • I completely agree with you. I love rummaging through books. I was fortunate to hear Oliver Sacks in person. I once lent one of my books of his away. I wonder if it will find its way to you? Hope so.

      • Malabrigo Rios and Washted! Such a joy to knit with, and the colors are so beautiful!

    • Rowan felted tweed or Kid silk haze. Pondering a Temperature Blanket since Kay began posting about hers! And so want to knit Gossamer by Joji!!

      • Same!

        • When I look through my stash, I wonder why those 2 balls of rose kid silk haze haven’t multiplied like rabbits into a shawl or sweater size quantity.

  • I would love to find the yarn to a long lost sweater – like the sweater I made in college that got felted in the wash. I had no idea what I was doing but loved it so much. I should recreate it! Adding to my project journal now!

    • Fingering yarn!

    • Anything Freia even though I just bought some of the sock yarn. The colors are so beautiful!

  • I love rearranging and just touching Al of my yarn! No organizational structure has yet lasted more than a year, likely because having a Yarn Toss is just Too. Darn. Much. Fun. But my other rabbit hole is patterns. Not just rummaging through Ravelry but flipping through all the wonderful books I’ve collected over the years!

    • Dream State yarn in all its amazing color permutations. I have made the Night Shift cowl in several sizes and colors. And I am still fascinated as I knit.

  • The glorious bag of leftover yarn bits. I have a favorite scarf pattern that allows for an unrestrained use of all those yarns. It warms me twice, once with the actual yarn and once in the memory of all those prior projects.

    • That’s such a sweet thought, warming twice!

      • Just the gift of any beautiful yarn would make me happy!

      • Definitely several balls of Tynd for a toasty shawl. And all kinds of Freia—I would love to try them!

  • A Freia shawl ball! I’ve never knitted with that yarn, and it looks beautiful.

    • A yarn in a ‘knock my socks off’ color that would pop in my next project.

  • Hello Kay! Another lovely article. I have just mobilised my virtual knitting group to knit some DK squares for blankets for Ukraine. I’ve got very little DK in my stash so I’d love to find some bright DK to bring some hope and joy to women and their children in very difficult conditions.

  • Love it all. In my stash I hae come upon half finished small ornaments tha I finished, nice surprise.

  • Oh, heck yeah yarn rummaging! Worsted weight with absolutely no regard for dye lots or yardage! My sister and I go to a secondhand craft sale every year — me for the yarn & needles/hooks, she for the fabric, and then we rummage the other supplies as well, delighting in finding embroidery hoops and ribbon and beads. So much fun to have a partner in shenanigans!

  • All kinds of yarn and all the colors! It would also be fun to dive through that bin of my mom’s fabric scraps and remember what she created with each one

  • Almost any craft supplies or cookbooks. I’d happily rummage for well over an hour.

  • I’d love to find yarn, quilting fabric, poetry, and lovely pieces of sheet music for piano — and maybe some cushy running sox.

  • A matched set of buttons for my WIP (Gossamer).

  • I love going through my fabric stash! It’s fun to remember what I was going to sew, but also when I have no idea, & I imagine something new

  • I would love to find felted tweed – the colours blend so beautifully and it is lofty and wondrous

    • Aside from finding some lovely Freia, I’d love to find any jewelry that I’ve lost over the years! That would be a true treat. Aside from the yarn!

  • Easy – Malabrigo Worsted

    • I would love to find hand painted sock yarns and vintage buttons.

    • Hats are my jam and Rios is my go-to.

  • I LOVE new combinations of color and texture so I would love to find combinations that spark my creativity for a new blanket in the making

  • Sock yarn, especially, and old knitting patterns.

  • I am currently obsessed with Andrea Mowry’s “Bear Paw” socks…so all the DK weight yarn in all the colors!

  • Atlas and Kidsilk Haze! Knitted together maybe? So much fun to play with them

  • I’ve stumbled across little snippets of letters and notes my kids have left. Small drawings w/love you notes or “parental units” I’m going here after school.

  • Yarn, definitely yarn. But really anything crafty to discover is thrilling. And books, definitely books…the mystery in the crowded shelves of an old used book store or the sales table at the mega Books R Us are both exciting.

  • Recipes, patterns, crafting supplies and my kitty cat on my lap while I look at what I have found ~ these are a few of my favorite things

  • No doubt I would find the size 5 circular needles I looked for FOREVER with a started project on them I totally forgot about. Yes, now I have an extra pair

  • A stash ball of yarn that takes on a new life by surprising me with how it can be combined with other yarn. Extra joy for something in a useful weight and color that is one of my granddaughter’s current favorites. That would be Finnish Blue, red with a hint of blue, not tomato color, really bright and “I love looking at and touching all the options”.

  • That’s a fun daydream! I’d rummage for all the blue yarn.

  • Somehow buried in the midst of it all – that very special “souvenir” yarn I purchased during a distant voyage but forgot all about until that very moment – and realizing I have the perfect pattern for it now!!

  • I am busy working on hats for the family at Christmas and cannot find worsted weight merino wool in black for the noses and eyes for the polar bears on the hats

  • Yarn, of course. Old patterns or knitting books? A lost recipe card. Fun notions (wayward stitch markers or a missing darning needle). I love a good bin . . .

  • I very much would love to have a sample of Atlas to make hats for donation.

    • A bin of Freia mini would be fun to rummage through, also Kidsilk haze. Non yarn item .. I think a bin of vintage buttons would be so fun to play in .

      • Thrift stores and antique shops are a great place for buttons! I have several bags. I love diving into my buttons to find a project to suit them.

  • I would be over the moon getting to spend a half hour rummaging my way through felted tweed yarns as well as piles of kidsilk haze yarns. Heavenly!

  • I would really like to try anything from Freia. A minikin or a shawl ball is on my wish list. Any Superwash scraps to use for charity knitting would be welcome.

  • Rowan (original fade able) Denim yarn!

  • A happy half hour?! More like a happy half a day (or more!)! 😉 Besides spending a few hours (or a day if I’m lucky) doing a mini yarn crawl in my home city (or whatever city I’m visiting) to drool (oops, sorry, I mean “look”) at their stock of yarn and other fun accessories, I love going to thrift shops to see what treasures could be found – from vintage home items to fun toys/puzzles to yarn!! (especially if I am lucky enough to come across anything Malabrigo!), it’s always fun for a look-see (or more often than not look-buy!). 😛 Thank you for this opportunity and it’s nice to hear that I’m not alone when it comes to gleefully looking over someone else’s stash to see what treasures are abound! 😀

  • Silk and wool blends would be nice to find. Your article reminds me of shopping at Tuesday Morning where you find small quantities of designer yarn.

  • Antique jewelry!

  • I’d love to find the first three things I knit when I was a child learning. I don’t remember what they were but I’d love to have those mementos

  • This may be a sacrilege but the very first thing that came to mind was buttons – to complement a finished knitted object of course!! I would love to spend 30 minutes in a bucket of buttons.

  • Yarn, Yarn and more Yarn…after your posts on your temperature blanket, I am feeling the need – no the desire (I’ve already made two temperature blankets in past years) to begin another one. This time perhaps with more amazing colors and textures!

  • Atlas, of course!

  • Lost tiny sharp scissors that were my mom’s — know they’re somewhere

  • A gorgeously spun yarn that is squishy soft but holds stitches well, in a gorgeous color that goes great with my skin tone :-).

  • I love to go through baskets of sale yarns at LYS’s when I travel. You never know what treasure is in there! It’s easy to buy one or two skeins of yarn to take on the road, knit or pack away for later.

  • Ooh that’s hard …. I would love to rummage around looking at sock yarns I just love the endless possibilities between colour work, textures (cables ribbing) to different thickness there is so much you can do. I could spend days comparing options! I also love fountain pens again there is so many options with colour and thickness of the nib. Plus both of these allow my creativity to flow freely! The final thing I love so much about these two hobbies is both are made all over the world and sometimes it feels like you are diving into a country’s heritage and culture which is beautiful and simple and unobtrusive – you are soaking it all in!

  • Nothing makes me happier than “organizing” my yarn or my books.

  • Oooh, Freia, or kids ilk haze would be my go-to’s. Mostly the KSH though – some sort of glorious inspired-by-earth-stripe scarf/cowl/warming-thing could emerge from part skeins & orphaned balls of that ethereal fluff!

  • Oh you must have seen my back bedroom……I love rummaging through all my bags and piles of yarn and getting reacquainted with old friends. Which one do I like finding the most? The one that reminds me of the friends I was with when I decided I couldn’t live without it. It makes me smile and appreciate both the beautiful yarn and beautiful people in my life.

  • Definitely Freia minis. The colors are gorgeous and they are so cute! Also buttons, especially vintage ones.

  • Felted Tweed is my current fave, but any wooly wool – fingering to DK – in scrumptious colors.

  • Sock yarn. The wilder the better!

    • I love anything mohair! And self striping sock yarn is so much fun!

  • That sounds like so much fun. Like digging through my friend’s stash. She is more likely to dig through mine. You’ve described her delight perfectly. I would love to find the partial skeins that I can marry into a great hat or cowl.

  • I love going through my bins of fabric as well as yarn. I have made some fun quilts and bags with other people’s cast offs!!

  • Any kind of sock yarn – solids, tweeds, variegated – anything!

  • I see some Lamb’s Pride yarn in those bins! Love that yarn.

  • I would do a happy dance if I came across a bit of Cormo, even a few yards of it!
    There is something magical about the luster and springiness of this wool, especially against the skin.

  • Finding any yarn or spinning fiber I haven’t looked at in a while is always nice. But I want to know what brand of bins those are and if they have covers on them when they’re not being photographed!

  • I love Rowan Felted Tweed also. Knits up so beautiful and the colors are endless. Finding that rummaging through would definitely make me happy .

  • Worsted weight in all the colors! My brother’s mother-in-law just passed and I was the recipient of her stash. I’m going to knit a log cabin blanket for my sister-in-law and am stash diving to fill it up

  • Oh definitely a tweedy yarn! Or possibly a partial ball of something properly woolly that would be just the thing to pop into whatever hat or mittens are on the go.

  • I have started my own small bin of leftovers and try to knit a couple of squares every once in a while, hoping for a cozy blanket at the end (is there ever an end..?). My treasured find would be anything with linen, I love the feel of it.

  • Rowan kid silk. It would be a miracle to find that in my stash as I know I have never bought it-but miracles can happen, right?

  • The right yarn for the project I’m starting. Plus, all the wonderful yarns I had forgotten about and pledge to make something wonderful with it.

  • I would love to find any wool yarn, but especially a rare discontinued one. Once I found 7 skeins of Alice Starmore Scottish Campion in the craft bin at Goodwill. $1.99 each. Thrilling!

  • A ball of atlas I think.

  • I’d love to find some mohair!

  • A surprise ball of blue Candide yarn to mend the cardigan I knit myself about 50 years ago… It’s still going strong except for the button band!

  • Yarn – any yarn (but not bulky, thank you). Embroidery floss – old and new. Buttons! so many options.

  • Rediscovering that skein I had to have but haven’t used yet and still loving it.

  • I’d be looking for some bright golden yellow yarn to use in colorwork projects since that’s what I’m missing in my stash.

  • Books to read, buttons, lace remnants, and old letters.

  • I would love to find that long lost ball of hand dyed yarn that I got special to make that one skein shawlette with, but it ended up in my stash, and now, when I go through it, can’t seem to find it!

    • Hi, Cathy, your thoughts are so much like mine – I love finding a beloved yarn I may have even forgotten I had or didn’t know where to find it. I’m not that organized to label the bins – one day I will. 😉

  • Enough left over sock yarn for a wild pair of socks!!!

  • Freia yarn balls!

  • A bin of Jamieson’s for a fair isle project!

  • I am working on hats from Knit the National Parks and would live mini skeins of worsted wool.

  • Hand dyed sock yarn. I’m obsessed with knitting socks from hand dyed yarn. Knitting them makes me so happy.

  • I’d love to rummage or get my siblings to rummage enough to find my father’s marmalade recipe and my mother’s fruitcake recipe.

  • I love opening up my bins of yarn and imagining the possibilities! How could I go wrong with any of your luscious yarns. Go ahead, surprise me and make my day

  • I would probably spend my time rummaging thru and organizing patterns. From socks and gloves to sweaters and shawls, throws and blankets to seasonal and comfort projects I seem to have pattern mania going on.

  • I organized my stash by fiber content. It was so much fun to spend time remembering what I bought this or that skein for. Yarn represents possibilities to me. I was surprised to find a zauberball in the pile. Must use that next! And it’s not hoarding if its GOOD stuff….

  • Oh wow! Kay I am with you. I would go bin-diving for Rowan Felted Tweed. But then, did you say shawl balls?

  • Any small remnants would make me sooo happy. I have a new interest in mixing different yarn types and weight together in a project….thanks.

  • I’d love some ends that end up being like mini-skein size of just about anything –like finding my own mini-skein bundle!

  • I love rummaging through yarn and books. You never know what treasures you will find. Also bins of CD/DVD’s at stores that are on sale. Sometimes there are classics hidden there.

  • Since this is fantasy, 2 freia yarn bombs and some kidsilk haze to go with them….or maybe a bunch of felted tweed, with or without labels so I can guess what they are!

  • I’d love to find one of those crazy zauberballs… that would make my heart sing!

  • It’s fun to find anything that brings back happy memories!

  • Yarn for me! A box full of wooly, squishy, colorful balls

  • I would love to rummage and dream of all the awesome things I could knit. Any knitting notions would be fun to find, a random stitch marker, or buttons would be fun

  • Peruvian highland wool. No question.

  • I love this kind of “scavenging”. It’s a bit like being a treasure hunter. I am this way with yarn and fabric. Last week, in an ENTIRE fabric store, a friend and I were grubbing in a bin of small bits of fabric. I found one small bird print perfect to insert in a quilt I am making. Euphoria in a 5”x 9” rectangle!

    • Something super soft and squishy (ya know, the pettable kind), or something I love but completely forgot I had.

  • Oh felted tweed please. And I love kidsilk haze too. Was planning to make a blanket this year but fell & broke my right wrist badly. I’m hoping to get back to it by the first of the year. Lost my beloved mama this year. I recently found in her bins a lovely red & black silk box with love letters from her long time man friend. My favorite find in a plastic bin.

  • Oh goodness..a SQ of cashmere? Wouldn’t take up a whole lot of space.

  • All the beautiful colors of Atlas!

  • Yarn, Rowan denim or New Zealand marino.

  • How can you walk in a room and have free reign in yarn bins and not have your mind blown??? Such fun..once the mind is reset lol I would love touching the yarns to pick a color and see the perfect pattern for it nearby!!! Thank you ! Debbie conway

  • I would love to find that the elves had come and completed ( or knitted a significant amount if squares 😉 ) on this Christmas blanket I’ve been working on for two years. I thought it was such a good idea……

  • extra needles in a size 4 or 6….I always misplace them

  • Lettlopi for sure. It’s so versatile, has such earthy dreamy colors, and will work on so many needle sizes. A wonderful thing to have in stash.

  • Freia! Freia! Freia!

  • Rowan felted tweed, so many lovely ideas from your patterns for color work projects

  • Sock yarn! (Scraps work ok.)

  • Wool yarns, buttons, and all kinds of craft books!

  • Right. Now, I’d rummage for something sparkly to knit some little ornaments out of to make a garland! ❄️

  • Anything with cashmere or sparkle. Or both!

  • Rummaging away. I have knitted several Musselburgh hats this year and discovered the joy of using some leftover bits for a stripey hat Finding some fingering or sport weight yarn that would be lovely.

  • I would be ecstatic to look for treasure in Ashley’s bins! I love so many different types of yarn and would be hard-pressed to pick a favorite. And the same goes for colors!

  • Sock yarn – all those leftover bits of sock yarn come together in the most delightful ways!!

  • Spincycle!

  • Yarn…any yarn will do!!! I love it all!

  • Well some lovely exotic bit of yarn (angora?), of course, or some cool buttons. I have a crazy big button box, some buttons inherited from my dear sainted mother, and digging around in there is a treasure trove.

  • Old drafting tools and mechanical pencils

  • I would love to find a bin of random alpaca blend DK or Fingering weight yarn in yummy warm colors. Of course add a few cool tone colors to mix things up a bit. Then to find some suri alpaca or mohair to blend would be a special treat.

  • Oh the yarn browse! My stash is sorted by weight and in clear bags so I can “find things quickly”. Nope. Looking for a skein of black fingering weight took me almost an hour once. But I picked out several great color combos for patterns I had found recently. I had so much fun! And then when I was done? Of course I had forgotten about the black and had to dive back in!

  • Bits of leftover yarn that remind me of what I made with it, who received it, and the pleasure it gave me.

  • We moved to a new home 4 years ago and I somehow lost my button collection. Would love to find a gran bag of special buttons!

  • A skein of hand spun and dyed

  • There are so many memories attached to yarn you’ve saved no matter the size. That’s why we keep even the tiniest bit. I guess what I’d most like to come across would be all the bits left from the baby clothes I made my grandkids (6) over the years. Dale of Norway was one of the brands and I have a bin or two of baby yarns left but alas no more babies! Somehow knitting for teens isn’t quite as fun. Though they do get socks and hats and smaller things. So it’s nice to come across a swatch or small bit of baby blue or pink and even more the bright red and royal blue of a Christmas sweater. Lots to remember.

  • I would love to find bits and bobs of colorful yarns that I’d use to make tiny toys and Christmas ornaments!

  • Angora, cashmere, and alpaca yarns would be my favorite things to rummage through. Just getting to touch them would be enough even if I could not bring any home with me! I also love exploring in bookstores which is also sort of rummaging, just with your eyes rather than your hands.

  • While rummaging through all that lovely yarn, way in the back, I would love to find that special bottle of red wine I tucked away and forgot about.

  • Some beautiful chunky burgundy yarn

  • I would love to find a Freia yarn ball!

  • Anything from Freia would make me happy. Their yarns are so clever and fun to knit!

  • Kidsilk Haze and Atlas, for sure. Would love those yummy yarns in colors of the sea and sky. Just love the blues/turqs/teals, with a bit of lime. Mmmmm.

  • I would love any yarn with texture and color variations. I’m new to this world of “real” knitters and am enjoying learning the ropes!

  • Christmas colors in any weight and yardage so I can knit more mini trees!

  • I love yarn and just feeling all the different kinds. My other fun would be wandering a used bookstore and digging through the sale section. There are some gems in there!

  • I want to find the first sock. I knit one, stash it while I start the second, and then can’t remember which pile the first sock is stashed in!
    Yes, this is true disorganization, just put them in the sock yarn stash!

  • Right now I’d like to find a partial ball of that long discontinued, label-less celadon shade of felted tweed that I’m using in my temperature shawl. That would be a holiday miracle.

  • I’m excited if I find fingering yarn. I love to make scrappy socks for the family and Gnomes for my granddaughter.

  • Cashmere! Felted Tweed! Freia!Atlas! Any yarn makes me happy!

  • Angora

  • I’d love to find bits of sock yarn that I could use for color work or helical stripes in socks! I just love using up bits like this, and I love wearing colorful socks!!!

  • Felted tweed! My favorite.

  • Anything from Rowan. Love it.

  • I would not be any particular brand of yarn but it would be a bin full of yarn in various shades of teal, ranging from a blue-teal to a green-teal and everything in between. So thick yarns, thin yarns, solids, tweeds, tonals, variegateds. It is a color I absolutely adore! (PS – It makes my sister laugh at me because my hands just automatically reach for those shades.)

  • Just one precious ball of Qiviut yarn. Just one.
    In my lifetime I really dont know if I’ll ever splurge and buy one. Would have to be a gift.

  • Hmmm…merino wool would be lovely, maybe some cashmere, how about yak, perhaps…heck most anything would be wonderful! Rummage away!

  • Old recipes for sure, especially those belonging to my dad who had a tendency to make things without writing them down. In particular, a Christmas cookie from my childhood that I can still taste but sadly have not been able to recreate.

  • the fun of rummaging is never knowing when that “aha” moment will strike! so many possibilities, so little time 🙂

  • Id think of something- Angora!

  • I saw those plastic bins and thought: “Kay is organizing her yarn, too!” Alas, I was wrong, but I’ve been re-kindling my Love of My Stash in recent weeks (ok, it’s been months, several of which saw no attention to this task) as I am trying to organize it. Many wonderful discoveries therein. The best finds are “Sweater Quantity” of yarn. In fact, I’ve found so many that I had to buy 2 more giant bins (total now = 4) to hold just the SQs! Much pattern-exploration, planning, and multi-projecting is happening. Multiple WIPs have been born!

  • I love the challenge of finding ways to repurpose things, and using up bits of yarn is a lovely way to do this. You create a unique item, and save those precious skeins of yarn from the landfill. I look towards yarn with natural fibers and colors. Nature has a way of using just the right palettes. Those bins of yarn that Ashley has look devine!

  • There’s nothing like yarn… senses are fulfilled! Visually looking at all the lovely colors…. Sniffing the scents, squishing the fiber…. Hmm listening…. All that I can think of are the wonderful videos available now to teach us “how to’s” I’d love to find kid silk haze by Rowan… I love the colors and the softness. I want to make the scarf you posted in the kit that sold out so quickly!

  • I’m usually rummaging for the perfect button for my current yarny project. To find that in the quantity I need always makes my day!

  • Any yarn any needles definitely knitting book sold by mdk.

  • Some good, workhorse, feltable yarn! I’ve had an urge to go a-felting lately, so yarn to make another bag to felt would be fantastic.

  • Scraps of woolly yarn for my Frankie Ten Stitch. A working wonderful world of color ❤️

  • Yarn, of course, but also buttons. I love a good button bin! I have my great grandmother’s button bin and have been shopping from it for ages. She removed the buttons from every garment her family wore out before it was tossed in the scrap bag, and I always loved rummaging through it. I was so happy to get it when she passed. I spent many hours of my childhood sorting those buttons and still love it.

  • Lots of variety. Enough to combine colors and textures for cowls, hats, scarves or whatever the amounts lead to.

  • From a rummaging expedition I would really like to find the remaining 1.5 skeins of heathered navy worsted that I KNOW is in there somewhere. I would also like to find my spare car keys that have been missing for a week.

  • If we could bend the space-time continuum, I would love to uncover a blast from the past stash of a sweater quantity of Rowan’s Magpie Aran Tweed. In today’s time, the surprise yarns would be delightful.

  • Anything Freia would be my joy

  • When I’m rummaging through my yarn bins, I love coming across the sparkly or feathery novelty yarns I used to use, they always bring a smile to my face and are of course so lovely to touch!!!

  • Love a good discovery like that! I’d love to find soft and squishy sock yarn, it’s all about the feel when rummaging. Then the colors, each person I knit socks for has a different style, and the colors speak their name to me.

  • Books! I adore book-browsing, resistance is futile.

  • Any Atlas!

  • Tweedy, crunchy worsted weight yarn in bright colors is a craving now. Linen and linen blends is another thinking ahead to summer. Beautiful yarn!

  • La Bien Aimee yarn!

  • Lately I’ve been on a Gnome making kick – whether it’s knitting, crochet or some other yarn craftiness, I’ve been making Gnomes. I would love to find some small bits of self-patterning yarn to use for their bodies and hats. But what I look for most at rummage and estate sales are unusual buttons and old costume jewelry.

  • Yarn, of course! I would love to find a sweater quantity in fingering weight and also po lots of mohair! I want to make the Gossamer in white (craie), I want to make slipovers, etc. I would not mind finding new needles to me (chiaogoo minis blue or yellow set, forte, lykke, addi flex). Buttons too, lots of them!

  • I’ve been having a fun scavenger hunt through odd skeins of Rowan Valley Tweed in a beautiful deep red color whose name escapes me at the moment. I’ve found three skeins in the same dye lot at various LYSs throughout New England so far. It’s like Pokémon Go, but with yarn!

  • A forgotten book or a cache of buttons! I sometimes purchase buttons and squirrel them away in unexpected places, so it’s really a happy moment when they are rediscovered.

  • Would love to knit with Atlas and Woolfolk Tynd!
    And my favorites are Malabrigo, Manos, Kid Silk Haze, to name a few.

  • Rummaging through my own yarn stash, there is always something I forgot about. My parents pick up yarns from garage sales so those go to the stash.

  • Oh my. So many things I’d love! Mohair, any woolfolk yarn (since I’ve never tried it), self striping sock yarn….

  • Yarn! Lots of new colors and textures!

  • Knitting and crochet books

    • Yes! Especially the hooks that have the price imprinted. I have a few of them, and one or two old English crochet hooks.

  • Any woolly wool that is enough to make something useful and pretty. Fingering weight is always useful because of the yardage.

  • Would love to find yarn that is perfect for a pattern I have been wanting to make. Then I wind it and cast on then and there.

  • Its always that one ball of yarn that will help me complete whatever it is I am working on.

  • Spincycle yarn! Each skein is a unique jewel that I didn’t have to spin myself

  • Speckle me happy:)

  • A skein of wool and silk blend yarn.

  • Specifically a partial skein of KSH Verdant with the idea of carrying it along with some sport weight linen to make Gossamer. (Pure KSH would never survive in my hands. Too much ripping.) I have one skein of a similar shade (from a previous decade) and hope it would be a match so I could order a full skein.

  • There are so many yarns I love! Anything soft! I love to mix mohair with another wool. I love alpaca blends. For softness and definition, I love Nua Sport. Just not a fan of most cottons. Other surprises would include buttons. There are so many unique buttons for sweaters now, I just love it!

  • A hidden room with more space to store yarn.

  • I would love to find some long discontinued Louet KidLin lace weight. I used it for a very open weave knit drapey cowl years ago. It is my go to year around (especially on cold airplanes) and is simple and light. I would love to make more.

  • Oh I think I see Lamb’s Pride Turquoise Delights! Went through my stash not long ago and made a small scarf for my granddaughter and now she wants matching hat and mittens but my stash has no more. Wish I could dive into Ashley’s stash! Those bins look fun!

  • Would have to be Spincycle Dyed in the Wool. I’m currently nursing an obsession with that yarn, feeding it by picking up a few skeins here and there when I run across it in the wild.

  • Finger weight yard. I still have the itch to marl everything!

  • Any sock weight yarn would be wonderful to find but especially one of the Freia yarns!

  • I just laid my hands on Murmur from Shibui, and man is that something I could touch ALOT!

  • Freia Minikins!!

  • I would love to find anything in Aran weight! It is my go-to for hats and mitts and I have lots of leftovers that could be used if paired with other remainders. Lots of possibilities!

  • Regia Pairfect sock yarn – particularly the Arne and Carlos colours! I could happily knit socks for giving at Christmas.
    Thank you – it’s been fun reading all the comments.

  • I’m about 12 inches into a blanket where I’m marling sock yarn leftovers with gray worsted, so sock yarn nuggets for sure. And I’m so enjoying this garter stitch meditation that I’m eyeing a temperature blanket for when I’m done. So some starter balls of Felted Tweed would be a nice treat.

  • Oh, a bin of Rowan Felted Tweed would be so fun, but so would a bin off just about any other yarn. The other thing that I can happily spend endless half hours doing is wandering through books stores or the library. So many books, so little time. Audiobooks and circular needles may be two of my all time favorite inventions.

  • I love looking through baskets or bins of yarn seeking unique colors and natural dyes or just all that beauty. Used book stores provide a similar thrill.

  • A skein of Woolfolk yarn. So wonderful, any weight; all are deliciously soft.

  • It would be Pima Cotton. I live in a warm climate and I can wear that all year. Oh, and any sock yarn!

  • Freia! Shawl ball or Minikins!!!

  • I get joy from finding all the yarn needed for a new project in my stash. Putting together yarn that I know I bought with a knit in mind but now can’t remember what that was is a real triumph!

    • I totally relate!!!!

  • I guess it would be Rowan Kids Silk Haze in the minute. I wcan just imagine how wonderful it would be rummaging for half an hour. Thanks for sharing!

  • I fear mine is an impossible dream! My cousin brought me some beautiful blue fingering from a small batch dyer in Scotland a few years back. There’s a shawl in my yarn bowl that is oh-so-close to being finished if I could only find a few more metres! Meanwhile, I’d settle for finding my Pinocchio tape measure I lost somewhere among my yarn. It was awesome, his nose grew when you measured with it!

  • Rowan’s felted tweed.

  • I love rummaging through yarn bins, but I’ve also adored reading every title on the dollar book carts outside the book store.

  • Something sheep’s and wooly; purples and greens and oranges.

  • Any high quality or indie yarn. I thrift a lot and there’s always acrylics so finding the good wool in there is always a thrill!

  • I love rummaging through my yarn totes on occasion. I have lots of single skeins, mostly sock or worsted weight, but no real plan to use them. What I need to find is a way to incorporate several of them into a cardigan. I need several skeins of a neutral color to pull it all together to use up lonely singletons.

  • I’d most like to find a bunch of non-superwash minis to make a Seaglass sweater, and I’d also like to find a special ring I lost 10 years ago!

  • My two favorites: Spincycle Dyed in the Wool and Felted Tweed. So many projects in mind!

  • OMG your rummaging sounded divine!! Another for me happens when I go thru my craft room searching for, something, & find other things (if it isn’t yarn it’s art related)
    What a FUN giveaway – that would be delightful to win!

  • I love finding yarn leftovers in strange places! how did sock yarn get in my bathroom drawer? Or finding the missing DP from a set of 5 that turns up in an empty project bag, any rummaging around in my yarn or knitting tools is a happy time

  • Any kind of sock yarn! I’m busy using up bits and pieces making Musselburgh hats for my family with sock yarn held double, but I have ambitions for making a few more!

  • fries shawl ball

  • Some surprise luxury yarn that is marked down, for instance finding a full bag of a bulky malabrigo at a yard sale on sale for practically nothing! Or my local Habitat for Humanity calling me because they got some yarn and finding a couple of bags of alpaca among the miscellaneous acrylics. I love a bargain! Of course I have my share of indie dyed yarns that I paid full price for and couldn’t live without.

  • Any yarn in pretty-to-me squishy colors: pinks, purples, blues; these never fail to make me smile.

  • I would love to find felted tweed in the bag! I hear so much about it but have yet to try it.

  • I recently cleaned out my 40+ year old’s room of “stuff” he had left. I got really excited when I found in one of the drawers of his dresser yarn that I had stashed away for some reason. It is now my current work in progress!

  • I would like to find bits and bobs of enough yarn to put together an interesting child sweater or hat. While I was there I would like to just poke around for fun. Maybe in the bottom of the bin I would find a few stitch markers or maybe some buttons would be fun!

  • Enough yarn for a project you want to start immediately. If there’s a lovely cashmere or yak (blend is fine!), that’s a bonus. If there was some qiviut, well, that just might be the diamond find.

  • Funny you should ask this now, but last week I happened to be at a new/used bookstore — besides a yarn shop, this is my other happiest place. Nothing better than this. If there’s notes or a message inside the book, even better. Almost like time traveling.

  • I’d love to find dark green yarn. Any weight, any fiber content.

  • I would love to find a Franklin Habit Delores. I love her and all her outfits.

  • A skein of qiviut musk ox yarn to make the perfect luxury scarf!

  • I’d be over the moon to find a skein, or partial one, of cashmere. Just enough to make a small wisp of a cowl for someone special.

  • Books, books, books! Have you ever been to McKay’s used bookstore in Nashville? It’s a huge bin of used books off all kinds!!

  • Sock yarn, because it’s the yarn I’m most likely to buy and forget. I always love it because I know what to make with it. I buy a lot from independent dyers, so it’s always a one of a kind find.

  • O my! I would l would really love to find anything fingering weight – but especially cashmere or Freia balls or Spincycle Nocturne.

  • Rowan felted tweed. Always.

  • I like smaller gauge most of the time, natural fiber yarn. I would like to try felted tweed from Rowan.
    Thank you.

  • I would love Freia minikins and Woolfolk Tynd ….finally any yarn

  • Friea yarn makes me happy.

  • At the risk of being repetitious, yarn surprises are always welcome! I also love beads, beautiful stones, sparkly things.

  • My seed bins! I have a shelf that looks very similar to that ;D

  • I would love to find things that are not merino. I want to do more work in other fibers than merino. Silk Linen bamboo and Cotton would be top of list.

  • I would of course, LOVE to rummage through a bin of yarn! But, I also love rummaging through buttons!

  • I recently found an oversized sweaters worth of germantown worsted in an aqua shade of blue for $10 total at goodwill. I am still amazed.

  • I’d love to find enough of like fiber balls in amazing colors to knit into a sweater.

  • Our local W Pennsylvania Salvation Army has a fiber fair twice a year. One section is all yarn and knitting and crochet notions. I have filled a shopping bag several times with yarns, books, patterns, needles, kits, and other goodies I have longed for. Paid less than 50 dollars and got so much to share with my knitting group. Plus I had the fun of rummaging thru the worlds largest stash. And also donate to a good cause, of course.

  • I’d very much like to locate all my cables for my interchangeable needles! I know I have eleventy-billion of them, and just 2 are where they are supposed to live in my needle case.

  • The magic of colour-changing yarn…always hard to put down because I want to see what’s next!!

  • Any yarn of course but love when I unexpectedly find enough similar scraps for a stripey hat…pure love.

  • This a total no-brainer-Kid Silk Haze it is just dreamy.

  • If only I had a rummage bin of felted tweed. How wonderful to add scraps of it to everything!❤️

  • Old family photos. And another half-hour with the button box.

  • A bin of yellow yarns would make me quiver with excitement

  • One of my favorite scarves was knit from a bag of random yarn I bought at a thrift store (kudos to the ladies who bagged them!). A collection of all types of yarn. It was a lot of fun, so another bag would be a great find.
    However, right now I’ve been working on a bee and butterfly themed quilt. So I’ve been hunting fabrics, buttons, patches – anything that fits the theme! Do you have a bin for that?

  • Oh gosh, I’d love to find a nearly complete temperature blanket, lol. I have been drooling over them all year, but don’t know that I would have the wherewithal to actually finish one myself!

  • I just finished a shawl for a friend with yarn she gave me from her sister. I needed a new project and searched around for a while thinking of a new project – then realized I had wip’s in a bin upstairs. Perfect, and all the yarn is in the bag with it plus a few balls that were a different shade and didn’t make it into the shawl. I’m making the Cistella scarf – brioche and garter stitch.

  • Oh, I’d love to find someone’s knitting journal, especially if there were sketches for original designs included!

  • Recently, after I signed up for a test knit, I discovered that my stash is sadly lacking in bulky yarn. I see Lamb’s Pride Bulky in a bin, and would love some. Otherwise, anything Freia, especially the laceweight (my stash is also lacking in the laceweight category, since I usually knit with fingering). Really, though, I would be happy with any yarn from the bins.

  • I would love to find an assortment of felted tweed so I can start doing some color work, which is on my bucket list. I am also into lovely sock/fingering yarn.

  • That color that makes you remember the place that provided you with the inspiration for …

  • Rowan Felted Tweed for sure. Okay, any yarn, really…but Felted Tweed is special

  • My first thought as I read the article was “OMG, what an incredible opportunity! I wish I could dive right in!” And here we are. I’d be happy with anything but bulky yarn — absolutely no need for that here in Texas — but I’d be thrilled with anything variegated (Freia!) or the felted tweed I’ve been eying for months. I have months of chemotherapy ahead of me and need a good challenge to get me through the long boring hours in the hospital.

  • A pack of Freia mini-kins maybe stuffed in a plastic bag because the box got wrecked. Heaven.

  • Can’t think of a specific yarn but it is fun when I am looking for something else and I come across yarn I bought for something that didn’t work out and that I had completely forgot about, that I can now think of a use for.

  • I’d love to find felted tweed. I have never used it and have read some wonderful comments and seen your projects over the years. I love DK weight.

  • I find myself smiling when I’m rummaging to find a specific ‘something’ and find a ‘something’ I was looking for but couldn’t find a few ‘somethings’ ago…I hope that makes sense. I’ve also sadly, been rummaging through boxes of keep sakes from my parents’ passings. There are things that directly link to our family life and bring many happy memories to mind. Funny how you can be smiling and crying at the same time <3

  • Yarn! I love spincycle so much it inspires me as no other yarn quite manages to do,

  • Atlas. I want to check it out but I’ve never seen it in person

  • Any DK, worsted or sock yarn would be a treat! New yarn is always fun!

  • I can’t imagine having access to that! Restraint would be next to impossible. I can’t even come up with anything I’d rather have access to. Unless maybe it’s a half an hour free shopping spree at Trader Joe’s with anything I could grab.

  • I would like to find want fingering, lace, or dk weight yarns. I recently inventoried my entire stash looking for yarns I can use for Marling projects. Most of what I own are worsted or bulky so I’d love to find some other weights to work with!

  • something I would love to stumble over in my stash would be a fine mohair it would be a genuine surprise since I have not knit with it but I see so many lovely projects with kid silk and other mohairs. I also would love to see colorful sock yarns with stripes or amazing pops of color because I seem to be running short. I knit a ton of socks for my rather large family and use the leftovers for blankets. I am rounding the corner on my 10th scraptastic blanket believe it or not and have not yet covered all my family in lovely warm hugs. I would also love to find missing US 4 & 1 circular needles that go missing and I am sure are lurking in the stash.

  • Since I do rummage through bins at thrift stores looking for yarn, that is what would make my heart sing. But it has to be wool, not acrylic. The thrill of finding some old yarn like I did up in Maine last month is like that of a treasure hunter finding gold.

  • Loads of yarn!!!

  • Soft luxurious yarn that I bought just-because. I also just found the pattern sweaters I made decades ago for my teenage daughters that worked out really well.

  • If we are talking the full-on, full-tilt sober bliss of a flow state, how could it be anything else but getting to paw through exquisite yarns?

  • Oh I saw those bins and thought “Could I possibly ask to go through those the next time we are in Nashville? I’d be a quiet mouse and not bother anyone!” But who am I kidding, there would be squeals only delight. I’d most like to find joyful bright happy colors of Freia minis, Atlas in Pear which was the sample attached to my field guide, and, being super greedy, an azure Knitter’s Tote because I love it so! That is my happy color!

  • I love a shawl ball!

  • Reminds me of when I go into a yarn dive in my craft closet…I find yarns that I ordered long ago and forgot about and get excited all over again!

  • Kidsilk haze (all beautiful!) or any self striping yarn (love the surprise)

  • Some Luisa Harding sock yarn for a friend in Texas who loves, loves, loves this yarn!

  • A shawl ball. I love being able to just keep going and seeing what happens!

  • Ooh, so tough. Yarn, absolutely, but I’m also a sucker at flea markets for boxes of tchotchkes. I’m not the most creative person, but always wonder “what could I make with this?”

  • I’d love to find some white angora for detailing on Christmas stockings. It is so hard to find in shops anymore.

  • Superwash merino in any weight. Tuesday Morning used to have lots of yarn to rummage through, and I found lots of natural fiber yarns cheap there. Not any more.

  • Buttons. I love them. Don’t know why.

  • Felted tweed, to make some of those colourful, adorable Kaffe house blocks, and buttons. I can’t resist a box of buttons.

  • When I saw that Lamb’s Pride I thought Oh……if only…..

  • Atlas! I think in 2023, my first for me sweater will be truffle Atlas! Then probably more ideas will be born.

  • I’d really like to find my great grandmother’s thimble. I really feel like it’s safely tucked away somehow connected to that time when I made tutus for La Sylphide. But I’d be happy and surprised (partial) skein of kid silk, got a scarf idea.

  • Felted Tweed, definitely!

  • A color shifting worsted weight, or a shawl ball! Yum!

  • The things I know are somewhere and I just.can’t find.
    and p.s. – I am using leftover bits and bobs for hats, for Youngest’s paramedic colleagues and for donation bins. It has gotten cold out.

  • I love finding beautiful yarns – for deep discount or free. It makes the project even sweeter!
    Somewhere in my house is a lost passport ( already replaced) and I would love to know where it landed. I looked for it for weeks before replacing it.

  • I would love to find some bright colors of soft merino wool. I lean towards pinks and purples. Maybe something that has a long gradient from one color to the next for a shawl or shawlette.

  • Yarn or fabric…always willing to take on new beauties, but that’s not in my budget at the moment, lol.

  • I should VERY much like to find a ball of Freia. I don’t even care about the color. I would make it work.

  • I’ve really been into self-striping sock yarn recently, especially micro-stripes. That being said, any yarn I don’t have to pay for is a blessing so I’d be happy with anything! Thank you and Merry Christmas!

  • You had me at Felted Tweed. I do love me a good yarn, literary, fibrous, squishy, whatever, but Felted Tweed has everything in it I need, not to mention lust after: kind to the hands and neck, colorful like the universe, functional, easy to formulate into things, functional as all get-out, and all that there stuff. Plus, so many colorways! I knit the Color Explosion Throw with it and and fell in love. After that, um, maybe cookbooks.

  • I love finding things that appear by magic or spontaneous generation, since I have absolutely o recollection of either buying or spinning them.

  • I’d love to find some mohair in a really funky neon. I want to work with it sooo bad but I’m too intimidated. If it were just to pop up… I’d definitely have to go for it.

  • It would be amazing to find a nearly complete abandoned project. One that just needs ends woven in, buttons sewn on. Talk about almost instant gratification!

  • beautiful wooly yarn is my happy place!

  • Only a half hour? I love looking at knitting patterns. I can spend hours dreaming of projects to come!

  • Any bin of wooly goodness would be fun!

  • I love finding useable amounts of good old worsted weight wool. And while I’m digging I’d loved to find a fun pattern to stashbust useable amounts of worsted weight wool!

  • I’d love to find a friea shawl ball!

  • I would love to find the creativity and satisfaction that comes with rummaging through my bins of yarn. It is like a birthday party and present all in one! Such a fun feeling in which to look forward.

  • I’d love to find more felted tweed, some super luscious fine yarn for a wonderful lace shawl, and always, more sock. Yarn

  • I love any mohair or suri! The fluffier the better!!

  • Well after yarns, I’d say going through my vegetable seeds in January in anticipation of the next vegetable garden. What worked and what didn’t….and then the 2023 seed catalogs arrive. Someone save me….no, don’t save me. Let me enjoy my future garden in my mind’s eye.

  • I recently found a Reggia Arne and Carlos sock yarn ball in a charity shop for 1.99 that thrilled me. I’d like to find some beautiful soft yarn that I hadn’t tried before in my half hour of rummaging.

  • One of the honeycomb kits would be fun!

  • Any La Bien Aimee. I love it all ❤️

  • In the bins, I’d like to find a distraction from the sweater I’m knitting for my sister— it’s a pattern I’m not fond of with yarn that I’m not fond of! Knitting it is like penance!

  • Yarn, any yarn! Okay … maybe not that bouclè stuff …

  • I would love to find an unexpected combination to make marls with, particularly the scarf…. Or the sequence knitting, sorta-marled scarf!

  • Yarn, YES. I always go through the yarn bins at thrift shops. Sometimes there is something good . . . stray cashmere or silk to combine into a scrap shawl . . . or enough skeins of a yarn shop brand to make a sweater. Recently I started collecting skeins of rug yarn with the idea of crocheting a small oval rug. The rummaging is a passion all its own. Not finding anything in a bin is almost as fun as finding, and the bin is always better organized for the next rummager when I am done.

  • Rummaging through yarn bins would definitely be my most favorite rummage, but going through shelves of forgotten cooking condiments is high on my list as well.

  • the size 7 tulip interchangeable tips with my airplane knitting attached that got lost at TSA in Paris – not in the bin, but it sure would be nice to find them there

  • A magical swatch gauge that says I am always getting the right gauge!

  • How much fun is this? I would LOVE to find all sorts of bits and bobs of Kidsilk Haze —- heaven

  • Mohair! Especially discontinued colors of Rowan Kidsilk Haze and the wonderful, sadly
    discontinued Kidsilk stripe.

  • A special skein I bought on vacation & have saved. A flood of memories of the place & then “these days” trying to figure out what year that was!

  • On a Look-see in my LYS sale bin I once fond enough yarn, exactly like a Barbie dress my Grandmother knit, to make a shawl. Youngest daughter still treasures that dress, and it made me love special finds like that. So much fun to search or be given any extras around.

  • Going on an expedition in my stash is part of the pleasure of knitting! Diving into all that fiber, the colors , the texture then the planning! Anything pink will inspire me to grab those needles!!!!!

  • Buried treasure: gold coins and fabulous jewels!

  • The perfect cardigan buttons! I could happily spend an hour going through a button stash (in a butter cookie tin, of course) to find the perfect ones!

  • I’d love to find random colors of mohair. Been dreaming of a scarf/shawl like the one in your field guide. Lovely!

  • Felted tweed

  • The nifty new missing timer for my Christmas tree lights!

  • I’d like to find the story I wrote in my freshman English class. It was the best story I’ve ever written, and I’d like to read it again.

  • I would be completely THRILLED if I found a skein, or leftovers, of pure cashmere! I have never knit with it as it doesn’t fit my yarn budget (HAHA). (What budget you ask?)

  • That I had forgotten an extra SQ of yarn from the now closed Spirit Trail Fiberworks. These are my desert island yarns. I use them judiciously (and am trying to get over that), but the SQs are dwindling.

  • I love rummaging through my yarn. I don’t have a lot, but I do have enough that I probably can’t use it all in my lifetime. I also have a large stash of quilting fabric. As I sit here knitting, I will see something on TV or on a podcast that I want to make. I know that I have some fabric that would be perfect for whatever it is. I get to go rummage through my bins looking the right one.

  • Yarn, definitely yarn, the more ‘natural’ the better! I live in Bahrain, and have decided that I need to knit… sweaters! Yes I know, it’s 28º Celsius and officially Winter here, but there you go, I still operate on European time! And do you know how hard it is to get yarn in the Middle East??? Every time I travel to Switzerland, I buy, you guessed it: chocolate and yarn, and other goodies!
    My second ‘dive in the boxes for happy moments of rummaging’ is books! Again, being an expat, there’s so much ‘weight’ you can cart along with you, so most of my books are on Kindle.
    I have dreams of sitting by the fireside, with the snow piling up outside, a mulled wine by my side, knitting on my lap, and a good book in my hands – I can alternate between my two loves!!

  • I’d love Freia finds or Tynd woolfolk or anything tweed or soft or colorful or squishy

  • My pink mohair pullover oversized sweater from the 1960’s.

  • Some freia and spincycle would be perfect!

  • I’m kind of obsessed with Spincycle’s Dyed in the Wool right now—love the springy-ness and the colors!

  • Freia yarn- it’s so beautiful and the potential for marling is a dream! Of course, it is also true that Felted Tweed makes any day better. I’m planning next year’s temperature cowl.

  • Any Sylph hanging around? I want to make another Shakerag! Or Zauberball sock yarn (crazy or otherwise). Or Rowan Felted Tweed. Or Freia. Or Atlas. Or lions and tigers and bears, oh my.

  • Yarn or old favorite books. I recently came across of skein of gorgeous Ruby Wine Tilli Tomas silk with beads still have no idea what to make with it but as I have decided that 2023 will be a year of experimentation I’m viewing it as an inspiration. As for the books I work in a library and still love to rummage through a good used bookstore usually for old mysteries

  • I would be in heaven to find a bin of nonwool yarn that has the softness, drape, character and yet shape holding needed for sweaters and other lovely knitted items!

  • A church near where I work has a rummage sale every spring; it’s a big, sprawling crazy mess of everything you can imagine, but with designated areas for knickknacks, clothes, plants, glassware, etc. I originally went for the used books, but I happened upon the “crafts” area… Such fun looking through bits and bobs of interesting old yarn, needles and notions, patterns and knitting magazines!

  • Probably enough yarn for a multicolored sweater, perhaps a fair isle, that I didn’t know I had.

  • Red,black,grey,tree green or blue-love all these colors in knits that I do!

  • I’d love to find a bin containing Kid Silk Haze in orange to carry with yarn I already have for a sweater. My other “love to find” is novelty yarns with metallic threads and the Be Sweet yarns that were so delightful in colors & textures.

  • I would love to fine Tynd or Norwegian wool. Actually I am a big fan of natural fibers. Being able to rummage in Ashley’s bins who knows what would catch my fancy.

  • Tough question, but I’d have to say Atlas!

  • I love a grab-bag of stash yarn that somehow (always) makes a beautiful linen stitch scarf.

  • I agree the rummaging is the fun! But I’d never say no to finding some LBA or Lamb & Kid…

  • When rummaging without a plan, I just know it when I see it or feel it. It catches my eye and I know that is what I want.

  • I would love to find a multi color yarn in fingering weight that will play well with some natural grey Elsa Wool in my stash.

  • Any not-so-common wool that would challenge me to think of something to make with it.

  • Omg, leftovers are my favorite! A partial ball of freia or a rainbow selection of felted tweed? Finding bits of Lichen and Lace to add to my collection in the scrap bin at my LYS is the highlight of my week

  • Just enough dk soft wool with six colors for the design and one base color to make another hat for my daughter-in-law. She liked the one I made for my son so I need to hurry and whip one up!

  • Aaahh sale bins. There is one in every yarn store. I love to score on a sweater or vest worthy lot of almost matching yarns. I’ve knit my favorite sweaters from these finds.

  • I can decide that’s the fun of hunting!

  • I’d love to discover a couple of forgotten Freia shawl balls. I just finished another (okay, my third!!!) Parallelogram Scarf and am feeling seriously bereft without one on the needles. What will I do?

  • A full skein of blue yarn, wound into a ball, company/dyer long out of business, I have the label, not the yarn. Will scream with excitement if found, somewhere in my stash I hope.

  • I’m obsessed with Rowan Felted Tweed right now. I’ve been using it in two blankets since May. I love all the colors.

  • I would like to find some variegated yarn in any weight

  • Right now, I need to spend a half hour rummaging through a closet to find one of a pair of squad mitts, which I’m pretty sure is in there somewhere. It’s that kind of closet, that if the mitt fell out of the bin of mittens and gloves on the top shelf, it could be somewhere in the detritus of “stick it in the coat closet” stuff at the bottom. I made the squad mitts out of leftovers from the temperature scarf *I* made about 6 years ago. What goes around. . .

  • I would love to come across some Kidsilk Haze. I’ve never used it and would love to give it a try. It would be even better if it came with a co-ordinating skein of something squishy and a great pattern to use them.

  • I would like to find a nice wool yarn that is good for steeking. Even though I live in Florida, I still knit in wool and send the items to my friends and relatives up north.

  • Yarn, of course! There are certain shades that I’m always looking for, a certain cold, light blue, a special camel. I would be elated if the bin I was exploring contained Freia, Sylph or Spincycle… love to try them. Ashley, your clear tubs look amazing!

  • Rowan Denim in all the classic blue, and natural shades!

  • Indie dyed wool, or wool blends, sport or dk weight, please!

  • I would be thrilled to find some worsted speckled with purple and aqua

  • Any kind of fiber and knitting/spinning tools.

  • knitting needles!!! – one never has enough knitting needles!
    also those wooden spools with cotton thread for sewing – i love those.

  • First off, thanks for the good story today, Kay!
    I’d most like to find a set of magical stitch markers, a beautiful shawl pin and a sumptuous skein of Mohonk. Fingers crossed!

  • I would love some Rowan Tweed in a orange or rust color.

  • I would love to find my third pair of reading glasses so I wouldn’t have to traipse all over the house looking for pairs one and two when I want to read something important on my phone (like an MDK post) or a knitting pattern! Oh, to have a free half-hour to rummage!

  • I have a bin full of Felted Tweed that I keep on my desk, or sometimes as a ‘bouquet’ on the dining table. I love looking at it so much that I rarely use it. Maybe I’d find another ball to add to my collection?

  • I would love to find some Freia shawl balls or minikins (or both!) And despite having more circular needles, plus needle tips and cords for one particular brand of interchangeables, I’m itching to try a new, better system where everything stays connected all the time.

  • A few balls of DK weight yarn in bright and pretty colors. I have lots of yarn but very little lighter weights.

  • No surprise there’s a bin for that. Don’t most of us do the same? I love finding a surprise bag of partials that yesterday me put together thinking it would become something amazing. This year I donated more than 40 hats and scarves to our local warm coat drive made mostly from bits and bobs from my projects and my friends’ projects. Color sort a bit, marl away and it’s almost always amazing.

    I’d love a bit of a curated box of surprise. Maybe by color with different textures to make something really interesting.

  • Aside from long-forgotten yarn, I’m always happy to find something my kids made when they were little. They’re grumpy teens now so it’s a moment of awww.

  • I am an absolute sucker for gradient yarns. And bright colors. (Someday I absolutely will knit a sweater in a highlighter color!)

  • Buttons and vintage costume jewelry. Bins of vintage hankies.

  • If we’re talking yarn bin rummaging, superwash in any weight for my Hats for Sailors projects. If it’s attic or basement or storage locker rummaging, diaries or photo albums or other memorabilia.

  • I would love to find a ball of mohair, angora, etc. to add to a worsted for a cozy hat!

  • Old cookbooks are a rabbit hole in which I can spend a lot of time.

  • Spincycle!

  • Something in a beautiful shade of blue or purple that I forgot I bought strictly for the color with no project in mind.

  • A Freia shawl ball … or four! Especially love any yarns that have some sort of color change – tonals, handpaints, variegated, gradients.

  • Seriously, anything! It would be thrilling to get an assortment of yarn, and then figure out what I want to make with it.

  • Atlas, Freia and/or Dreamstate would be just lovely.

  • Yes to all!

  • I would love a variety of tynd to marl myself a cozy hat for winter. That would be so wonderful.

  • First of all, missing stitch markers. Or any other un-opened notions I bought on a whim and completely forgot because it’s in a bag with future yarn for future projects. Any future yarn that might be cashmere, baby alpaca, silk or a blend of all 3!

  • I love old books and would happily rummage for hours. Yarn wise I have always wanted to work with Freia shawl balls and any of the Spincycle yarns. Oh, the projects, I could do.

  • Kid silk haze, tape measures, a needle gauge

  • Once, while rummaging through a bin I had not looked in for a while, I pulled out my wedding ring. It had disappeared mysteriously about a year before. So, anything lost. Plus the particular yarn I had been looking for.

  • Wild colors of yarn! Any fiber, any size, anything that needs fondling and sorting and more fondling and more sorting…..yeah, yarn.

  • I’m a thrift shopper so any chance I get to rummage through yarn, package toppings, cards of any variety, and books makes a happy day for me.

  • I’d rummage for sock yarns that I bought on impulse and then instantly forgot about—and single skeins from long-ago yarn clubs.

  • Yarn!!! Or fibre. Ashley’s bins sound like complete heaven! At this point, I’m probably due for a bit of a rummage in my own stash. I might have some happy discoveries right under my nose!

  • A few spring/summer brights of Felted Tweed.

  • I’d like to find felted tweed in beautiful blues and greens (my happy colors).

  • Sock yarn, of any color!

  • A stitch marker—one that was a handy and helpful knitting companion before being lost, and found once more to carry its yarn-loving juju to the next person and project. Oh, the stories my stitch markers could tell!

  • A soft squishy vibrant color that I would have to have even if I had no earthly idea what I was going to knit with it!

  • The dreamy soft Tynd for holding and dreaming, or maybe finding the perfect color (one not previously considered) of KidSilk Haze for a Gossamer. Always so much fun to see what other odds and ends make it into a yarn basket, I found beautiful, glossy chestnuts collected on a walk in the bottom of my basket.

  • Socks!! Hand knit socks that have wandered, Smartwool, or really any wholesome coverings for my tootsies 🙂

  • I love Malabrigo, Freia shawl balls and mini skeins

  • I would love to find two hanks of yarn in wool, silk, mohair, and/or alpaca with fibers that will merge in a gorgeous marl for a huge, thick, warm cowl in colors that complement my weird winter coat that is olive green on the outside and heliotrope on the inside, I am sure they are in my stash somewhere!!

  • Mohair! I’ve never used it and am ready to give it a whirl in the latest Casapinka pattern Napz!

  • I would love to find the odd ball of yarn that matches the now mate-less mitten that my son lost. It isn’t that i don’t want to knit him a new pair, but i would be more inclined AFTER the Christmas knitting.

  • I’d love to uncover some yarn from Jill Draper Makes Stuff while rummaging. I haven’t used it yet but am very intrigued. But I wouldn’t say no to some felted tweed either.

  • I would love to find the first book you and Ann co-authored. I have read snippets of pages from many sources but would like to read it all.
    Thanks for what you do and finding ways to keep my bins almost full. There is always room for more!

  • I love vintage knitting needles and would love to find a pair!

  • Delicious yarn surprises – unexpected pops and textures and squishes. I love a good rummage though my yarn bins. Ashley’s sound like a dream.

  • Oh! Felted tweed is always on my mind, and would be welcomed. I’ve also be very obsessed with Freia lately. But, like a potluck, it’s always fun to be surprised.

  • I would love to find stray bits of rowan kidsilk haze, to add to my in-process shawl/blanket thing, made of marled leftover kidsilk haze and leftover bits of other yarns from stash. It may be finished by the year 2027….

  • I love yarn searching and patterns to go with them. Finding the perfect project for my chosen yarn. Both keep me really busy between knitting. Ahh. Retirement!

  • I would love to fine Rowan Kid Classic. Made my first sweater from that (in Rowan #28, also a classic).

  • Felted Tweed, of course!

  • Yarn in exotic fibers!

  • Spincycle!

  • Other than yarn, my happy place would be books, used or new.

  • I can get lost looking through old Vogue knitting magazines and revisiting all of the patterns I said I was going to make over the years – they are now all old friends lol

  • Yarn, of course! Or a pile brightly-colored fully jackets.

  • I was excited to see Lamb’s Pride! My folks retired in SD, where my Dad grew up, so Nebraska is close to home. I always pick Lamb’s Pride as my “how do I do this technique” yarn.

  • Actually did this yesterday – I found the yarn kit that I bought a few years ago. Now if I could just find the yarn hiding somewhere around here that would be perfect for a blanket for my dog.

  • I’m a diehard thrift store shopper who’s always on the look out for anything craft related. I was lucky enough just last week to be in front of the yarn bin when the woman in charge of pricing it dropped 19 skeins of Noro in, with matching color numbers and dyelots, enough for a whole project! I’m still contemplating the possibilities.

  • A magically finished St. Brigid sweater by Alice Starmore that has been in time out for 20 years. (Maybe it’s time to rip it out?) That would make my heart sing!

  • I also like to find cast-iron door stops – dogs. Originals, not replicas. I have a few terriers, even one male terrier with a lifted leg (my sister found that one), and a Texaco Terrier. My prize doorstop is a Borzoi – sighthounds are very difficult to find.

  • The perfect shade of blue yarn. Not too bright, but still bold. Just a whiff of green or grey in it. And enough to be the main color of something.
    Also buttons for my TULC because I am not good at picking buttons.

  • I think of the child who wrote a letter to God saying, “I didn’t think purple and orange went together til I saw your sunset last night!” I would like a combination which would stretch my color combination sense to be used in a temperature throw.

  • I love when I open my bin and there are 4 to 5 skeins, laying on top that sing together. Unexpected surprise that gets the creative juices flowing!

  • I would love to find Kidsilk Haze, any color. It’s wonderful to knit with.

  • Some small silk yarn to copy a small scarf I purchased in Hungary about 30 years ago.

  • Fingering or lace weight wool, please!

  • I love rummaging through my fingering weight yarn and picking up a skein of mcn or silk blend—-so soft.

    As she heads off in search of a skein due to a sudden urgent need for mcn fingerless mitts…

  • Nothing better than a rummage through a variety of yarns to spark the imagination. I would love to find a bit of suri alpaca. Even if I don’t knit with it I’d have it to fondle and ponder over.

  • My favorite find would yarn that is any shade blue or blue green! I also love new patterns and notions, to share with our knitting groups

  • Worsted wool that is not superwash.

  • I’d love to find Knitted Wit sock yarn. Especially the National Parks color schemes. So beautiful!!

  • Romney wool from New Zealand. Was there recently but unable to buy!

  • Fabulous fibre makes me happy! When I come across a forgotten few ounces to spin up and then knit or weave, even more happy! Especially if it’s BFL and silk, bliss!

  • I would like to find some of those Freía shawl balls in fingering on the blue colorway. I recently saw your shawl with the two colors and it was stunning. I like the marling effect. And feel it would go well with most things I own. Thanks for this fun dreaming……

  • Wow, I would really love to get my hands on some Rowan Felted Tweed!!!

  • I would love to have scraps of different colors of fingering yarn. I don’t knit much with fingering yarn, and I would like to make a Sea Scape tee which is made from fingering yarn scraps.

  • I am into Fair Isle and colorwork right now, and I adore Rowan Felted Tweed and Jamieson yarns for their color palettes and the beautiful way they knit up.

  • Mohair! I’d love to knit a mohair/ fingering sweater — I’m definitely behind the curve on that one. DK / worsted yarn for hats and mittens! Hats are my favorite cleansing project — they knit up so fast and bang! you’ve created something!

  • Old pattern books for knitting. And how to books on knitting. Swoon!

  • I’m a sucker for colorful & luxurious & fine natural yarns. I want all the fingering and lace weight linen, silk, cashmere, angora, suri, qiviut, yak, possum…

  • I love rummaging through my bins of remainders to find the perfect contrast for heels and toes in a pair of socks. Since I do a lot of colorwork, I never toss away any leftovers since a single row in a project doesn’t take much and I can use up favorites until the very last scrap.

  • Here is the tragedy of my life: I am planning to make a bunch of earwarmers as xmas gifts. The plan is to use up leftovers from finished projects, and learn brioche (or re-learn it, since the second knitting project I took on when I was learning to knit had a 2 color brioche. This was before anyone told me that brioche was hard, so I just did it.) ((That was then, this is now.)) I want yarn that is stury enough to stand up to being stuffed into pockets and other hat-like wear, but is soft enough to be comfortable against the face/ears/neck, extra points for colors that goes well with lots of others.

  • I love finding unusual shades of color and any bright color calls to me. I enjoy all the textures of various yarns and try to figure out ways to combine them. I sometimes end up with some unusual colored hats.

  • I’d love to find some worsted weight for the many projects I’ve got planned! Y’all should definitely have an after Holidays sale of these!

  • An unexpected, bright patch of color, that contrasts happily against the snow outside my window.

  • I love yarn, just the feel of the yarn makes me happy. You know those movies where people lay on their bed on top of $100 bills? That’s me with yarn

  • I would love to find Felted Tweed, or any lovely wooly wool yarn, and to see the serendipitous color combinations that happen. Although, on a recent rummage through someone’s discarded yarn, the best thing I found was a vintage, hand-embroidered pincushion!

  • Right now, I’d love to find my Kindle charger – it’s playing hide and seek!

  • Anything Freia! Love the colors.

  • I would love anything! What fun! (Or 1600 yards of awesome Atlas so I could make the Scotch Mist pullover )

  • I would love to find some Spincycle yarn. But I also love finding old knitting books from the 50s, 60s. .

  • I’d love to find some interesting (color and texture) fingering weight yarn for future projects – and any books related to weaving.

  • I’d love to find Freia manikins and some Atlas which I haven’t tried yet! Great idea! Thank you.

  • Any luxury yarn that I couldn’t bear to buy it full price.. and enough leftover yarn to make a whole sweater with!

  • Two skeins of baby blue angora I know are hidden deep in my stash.

  • I would love to find some partly finished projects, then I could finish them up and have something done!

  • Luxury yarn like merino, cashmere, or alpaca. Also, glass beads fa specific project, or the perfect buttons to finish another project. Surprises of any kind useful for making things would be a welcome prize!

  • I found a lost shoe last week and I was very happy! Now to remember where I put the first one… I also love to rummage through my yarn and I’d love to find a shawl ball in there!

  • an extra skein yarn of whatever I am knitting so I don’t have to play yarn chicken!

  • I would love to find some shawl balls

  • My scrolling stopped dead at all the Lamb’s Pride – my most most favorite yarn of all time. I’m seeing felted clogs, a nice warm sweater for this COLD winter so far in Wasilla Alaska, and more! Tell Ashley.

  • This is easy for me — Atlas. I already have started a collection of odds and ends, and it would be great to add to it. It’s a great yarn.

  • It’s definitely yarn and books, but a special mention goes to the baking aisle at the grocery store where I just like to poke around and see what’s in there.

  • A skein of Lanecardate Feltro in Navy blue – the superbulky, soft soft soft yarn with which I lost at yarn chicken by ONE SKEIN in making Brandy Cheyenne Harper’s brilliant Gentle Cardigan. It will kill me to frog it!

  • I would love to find hand dyed DK weight balls in earthy autumn colors-such a warm, cozy feeling.

  • That’s a tough question!

  • Various shades of pink yarn! Any weight will do. I also would love to rummage for vintage teacups.

  • Something DK or fingering weight and a surprise color of KidSilk Haze to carry with it.

  • Remnants of well-loved, discontinued yarns to incorporate into colorwork with all their fond memories.

  • I would love a sweater supply of Nua sport line. It looks so soft and squishy along with warm! My favorite colors are pretty much all of them. I can’t choose!

  • Just this afternoon, while I was getting Christmas decorations out, I got side tracked and found some white fluffy fur yarn. The decorations were forgotten and I’ve knitted a santa hat for my youngest grandchild. What joy – I won’t be decorating tomorrow either as I’ve got another 3 grandchildren who would be upset if they didn’t get one too

  • yarn! also fabric for all the sewing projects I’m going to do “someday”

  • I’d love to find some Spincycle Dyed in the Wool. My fingers would get goose bumps.

  • I love fishing thru bins of yarn. I look for a nice DK to Worsted weight yarn that would look good alone or with another ball to make a fun hat with cables or is stranded. I like Brown Sheep yarns and other yarns that are soft. Variegated yarns are fun to. Exploring yarns is so much fun. Then I like to gift the hats.

  • I have a bunch of WIP filled tote bags in “Craft South” (the area of the basement, named by my daughters, where the shelves and bins of yarn, fabric, embroidery, cross stitch, spinning, felting and stamping supplies, and crafting books live) and I love it when I run down to rummage in a tote looking for needles to liberate or a missing pattern and find a 1/2 ball of a favorite yarn I’d forgotten about or an abandoned project that only needs a tiny bit to finish (like the little textured honey-mustard colored wool sweater vest I started for my now 6yo granddaughter and procrastinated sewing the front and back together til she outgrew it, completely forgot about it and it took me about 2 hours to mattress stitch the front and back together, pick up and knit the neckband and sew in the ends for a perfect Christmas gift for her 2yo brother!). Digging through craft bins can be an exercise in frustration but more often it’s a treasure hunt (which leads to yet another cast on, but that’s a whole ‘nother story).

  • Freia – anything Freia! Or Felted Tweed. Or a Woolfolk yarn – I’ve never tried anything from Woolfolk and would love to try their yarns. Really, it would be hard to go wrong with any yarns you carry – oh, Neighborhood Fibers! And I love cool jewel tones – blues, greens, purples – yum!

  • pink things! pink yarns, pink buttons, pink vintage glass items.

  • I would love to find a yarn of wool/cotton mix- I live in the southeast and it just feels warmer every year (or is that just me!?)

  • Yarn, of course, but linen for me (wool isn’t so useful in Florida!). Some beautiful buttons, and a small project bag.

  • Suri in any colors to combine with a fingerling for hats.

  • I’d love to find koigu kppm, Tosh or Miss Babs, especially any of her Zombie series in Tarte. One can dream….

  • I would love to find sock weight yarn in colors I don’t have! I’m low on greens, oranges, purples. I have lots of primaries and neutrals. Lots!

  • Some squishy soft Merino DK or worsted is always a welcome surprise! But anything wooly or hazy is good

  • In the Basket of Time Past, I would love to find a few hours of the many days I spent with my very adult children when they were very young. They were a beautiful pair, even when they squabbled, and I loved them with all my heart. They were also easy to knit for — they weren’t picky about color, just itchiness, and they were little, so a sweater didn’t take long.

  • A ball of green cashmere

  • I woild be happy with any fingering weight yarn…if I am being greedy cashmere or silk blends. Honestly a few balls of fingering weight to try to add to my blanket or gnomes would be delightful. An odd stitch marker wouldnt be overlooked either

  • Cashmere yarn! But only if I’m being picky! For me, any yarn in any day makes a good day!

  • How can I pick? Although during the pandemic I have mostly been knitting charity (and other) baby blankets, I’m afraid I’m not using high-end yarn like yours. So what I’d love to find in Ashley’s bins would be beautiful fingering yarn for my other love, shawls. Right now I have a real hankering for hot pink. Have you seen the cover of the new Noro knitting mag?

  • Yarn would definitely be one and books I have not read yet would be another. Such fun!

  • Stash yarns that magically match.

  • Yarn, of course! I could narrow it down; my stash is oddly short of solid bright tones. Sounds like a big rabbit hole.

  • Shawl Yarn. I’ve been wanting to cast in a shawl, so coming across a stash of shawl yarn would be a delightful surprise!

  • Madelintosh sock yarn

  • Freia Shawl balls. Such a lovely fade

  • I don’t have much of a stash (or try not to), but yesterday I was in need of either a gradient or ombre for the “second knit” of a design project. I had 3 ombre and 3 gradients to choose from! But the ombres weren’t right (too stripey back and forth), so I’d love to find more smoothly shifting gradients in the bins…

    Here’s to yarn!

  • Old photos- that would be fun!

  • I can’t find the handle for my duster!

  • I’d love to fine a colorful Freia shawl ball as I’ve never used one and want to try it!

  • A nice silk-mohair blend, or any fabric. Remnants always call me.

  • Oohh.. Kidsilk Haze!! Or those lovely carbon steel scissors with a banged up holder… or a Patty Lyons book with a slightly scratched cover… Actually I can’t think of anything in your shop that wouldn’t be thrilling!

  • It would be pretty exciting to discover a lovely color of Shawl Ball. OR, I still haven’t tried Atlas. If I could just see and touch it, it may well become a new favorite. You understand wanting to feel it, right?

  • I love to rummage through my button collection. Sometimes to try to find the perfect buttons for a project, but sometimes just to marvel at some of the beautiful single buttons passed down to me in me grandmothers button tin.

  • I’d love any mohair odds and ends or freia bits and bobs. I’m saving up for an epic mohair colorwork sweater inspired by Anne Ventzel’s scrappy Spot Sweater.

  • ohhh – how about Kidsilk Haze or Tov DK?

  • Beautiful paper items for collaging. Also, a gift certificate for a personal fairy to help clean & organize my desk/books/craft materials/house.

  • The other day I went to the thrift store looking for a big mug. Seems like it should have been easy…

  • Well I love all the yarn I collect. I was at MDK and have fallen for all the Atlas yarns. I loved the little piece they sent and now i have 18 balls of 2 colors. I am sure that I can find lots of things to do with any partial balls.

  • I would love to find a blue and grey Freia Shawl Ball or the additional balls or Felted Tweed that I also need for my temperature blanket. Willing to trade the colors for the very low and very hot temps for the moderate temps so that everyone can finish up.

  • Oh yes, this is a Grand prize! Yarn, followed by books, fabric and food.

  • I would like to find any kind of Rowan yarn or knitting needles. But honestly, I would also like to look through a bin of wine!

  • I want to plan a temperature blanket for 2023 and I would love to have the Temperature Blanket Starter Pack!!

  • Love many colors of sock yarn for socks, hats, scarves, shawls, mittens etc

  • I’d love to find something in alpaca or cashmere or something soft & smooshy & bright! I adore pinks, purples & teals in all their shades but have too many dark colors in my stash. I need to brighten up my world!

  • Bits of Felted Tweed in various colors – but they’re probably gone by now

  • I like to look for a little cute ball of a purply color that just makes my heart sing. And then I can use some magic and a wave of some knitting needles and it can be a headband, a hat or even a Barbie dress with added beads for the granddaughters.

  • I would love to find skeins of Wooolfolk Tynd. It is very soft and knits well. I can imagine my rummaging hands going into the bins to find my new beloved yarn for a near future sweater project.

  • I make lots of hats and gloves for charity, so I would love yarn to make those projects.

  • Colors! Lovely soft blues, purples, anything that screams knit me now! 🙂

  • Rowan denim! Please please please?

  • Something soft and luxurious, in dazzling colors!

  • I love to rummage through either my yarn stash or my fabric stash. Neither are terribly easy to get to and I have to watch for the cats when I have any box out – especially one with tempting yarn in it! – but I love to sort through what I have and enjoy the memories of what I’ve made or imagine what I can make. It’s not in my stash, but I’d love to find a freia shawl ball in the blue or green family when looking through a stash, or even a set of mini’s meant to go together. I’ve been seeing such cute patterns designed for mini’s!

  • Oh for the sake of a good rummaging around, how fun! I think I have a skein of the Freia somewhere and a good zebra base yarn hank would be lovely to find.

  • Hummm, what joy. Minis would be fun and any silk blend yarn would be lovely.

  • I would like to find Sylph or a wooly non superwash wool.

  • Definitely yarn and quilting fabric. Just this morning I pulled out a bin of Christmas fabric so I can make some more (no-sew) Scandinavian Star ornaments.

  • I’d love to find the single earring that fell out of my ear while I was modeling a knitted scarf…

  • Lobster Pot Yarn which was the most beautiful hand dyed yarn. I believe it was mostly cashmere.

  • I have to admit…. I am a Rowan Felted Tweed fanatic as well. I have been known to buy up balls of felted tweed in colors that I don’t need and certainly don’t know what to do with…. it just makes me happy. It’s like buying Christmas decorations when you are closer to 70 than 60 and you just know they are headed to “the Big Garage Sale” the children will inevitably hold when they haul me off the to the “home”. That is really me too! It just makes me happy

  • I love to rummage in yarn, fabric scraps or antique linens !

  • a cute little package of MDK washi tape to start my journal journey.

  • Yarn! Followed closely by books!

  • Felted tweed is of course a favorite .. but really anything in purple as that’s my daughter’s favorite color and she is very knitworthy.

  • I would love to find any type of bright fun yarn. I love Freia but I really love any type of hand dyed multi color.

  • I would love to find some yummy alpaca to go with some odds and ends alpaca that I have left over from other projects!

  • Any kind of natural fiber yarn is fun to find in a rumage, or interesting knitting needles, or interesting patterns…

  • Oh my, I enjoy finding special notions or project bags (or both – the bags filled with the notions!), but more than that, I would love to discover enough kidsilk haze to make Gossamer – maybe one solid color held with an assortment of contrasting colors to give it some lovely marled stripes!

  • Anything… because I could share with my daughter who is new to crocheting!

  • Enough lace weight in a vibrant color that would finally inspire me to knit a large shawl

  • I would be torn between rummaging through the oddball yarns and finding the *next* pattern I want to do…

  • HELP – I love love this contest. I’m more than halfway through Kaffe’s HUGE garter stitch throw and I’m afraid I’ll run short of Zinnia, Celadon and Pink Bliss. I also wouldn’t mind a little bit or two of Ashley’s favorite yarns!

  • I’m all in for rummaging through yarns. I recently asked a new friend if I could see her stash (embarrassing) but I. Love. Yarn. She has a full basement of the most delicious skeins! Ahh! Such joy a musty messy basement can bring.

  • Some Kid Silk Haze and a lost CD of Mozart’s Requiem directed by Claudio Abbaddo.

  • The right length & size knitting needles is what I would be happy to my rummage out!

  • I love to find old/vintage knitting needles – and imagine the person who used them and what they made. And yarn 🙂 especially red. Such a cheerful color.

  • Old buttons, just love looking through my Grandmother’s giant can of buttons

  • I would love to find a few notions like the ones I am always losing or breaking-measuring tapes, tiny scissors, beautiful stitch markers. Maybe a need organizer because that is what I actually need….

  • Yarn, but also buttons or something like fashion magazines from the ‘70s – ‘90s. Would be fun reminiscing…

  • The bins are a great way to have access to the bits and bobs- very clever!

  • Garden plants. I especially love flowering plants.

  • My very best favorite: Koigu KPM/KPPPM.

    I also love: Freia, Rowan Felted Tweed (purples, fuschias, greens), Jade Sapphire Mongolian Cashmere, Plymouth Superwash Merino, Noro Silk Garden.

  • I would LOVE to rummage through a bin of your Atlas yarn it’s on my wish list this year!

  • Yarn! Any yarn! They all make me sooo happy! I am craving a multi-colored sock yarn, that needs various colors of contrast for toes, heels, and sock cuff.

  • Periwinkle colored fingerings weight wool plus other fiber yarn for a scarf/shall would make me very happy

  • I’d definitely like to find some bfl +silk or baby yak and silk yarn, or assorted buttons

  • Any color or all colors of felted tweed.

  • I recently bought a truck load (yes TRUCKLOAD) of yarn from an estate sale. Of course the yarn was ALL BEAUTIFUL, but such fun to read the labels of yarn bought long ago from stores long gone

  • love finding dk or ww weight yarn blends with silk and old sock pattern books! can never have enough of either.

  • Anything from woolfolk would be great!

  • One more skein of that yarn I was sure I had a SQ of. Or a skein that someone else needs. Actually I love love digging through anything looking for that one thing. Thrift stores, antique stores, the perfect blue paint chip. I love searching for that thing.

  • This would be from rummaging in a draw or shelf of books, but it’s a handwritten recipe or note from my Mum. She died over 20 years ago but yesterday I found a scrap of paper in a book – she’d written down a few random notes but it took me right back to a lovely place….

  • I would like to find enough soft yarn to do a swaeter with a straned color yoke at a reasonable price.

  • Cashmere please. Haven’t knit with it but love the cashmere sweaters I own.

  • Felted Tweed or Freia Shawl Ball

  • Kid Silk Haze in every color!

  • I ordered the Amaryllis from you. The arrived safely packed with tissue paper which I will be reusing! Then I read about the pot being made from recycled material which I rejoiced in and now mine is sitting on my window sill waiting to bloom but it is already turning a bit pink. Thank you for a wonderful product!

  • Super soft merino, silk, linen, or kidsilk haze. No alpaca for me, it’s too itchy! Maybe something beautiful for a Shakerag top! I do love the blues, dark deep reds and magenta.

  • I would like to find noro sock yarn.

  • I’d like to find color shifting yarns, Or sock yarn. Or a lovely surprise!

  • Sock yarn in every color! And angora because I’ve never tried it.

  • I would love to find an old, vintage knitting book hidden amongst skeins of yarn that whisper hints of the story of how they came to be in that stash. Did the book inspire an updated look using the yarns nestled with it? One’s imagination can run wild and free, giving way to creative bursts of new ideas. And colour…it always brings joy to see all kinds of potential colour combinations with fiber as the paints, and the human body the canvas. Every stash is as unique as the knitter.

  • Gradient and self-striping yarns in vibrant colors!

  • I would enjoy searching for any lace weight yarn. That is my current fascination. Thank you so much!

  • Most of my knitting is down with Brown Sheep products and they are amazing. I can buy seconds for fulling products and fingering weight for fair isle. The fact that they are American made and consistently high quality with an affordable price makes them a no brainer. But I’d like to try other yarns like Woolfolk and Felted Tweed. Y’all write so eloquently about them that I’m intrigued.

  • Yarn! Rowan felted tweed, madelinetosh, so many others. Next up would be buttons.

  • Bulkyish wool to use in a Salish style sweater. But then any knitting yarn would keep my fingers safe from mischief.

  • I am looking forward to knitting gloves over the holidays. Either some stranded Norwegian gloves of a lighter pair w/ only a single strand of Fingering Yarn

  • yarn and maybe books?

  • I’m a sucker for bright colors so shawl balls sound like fun. But I also love Lamb’s Pride Worsted so if a couple of those skeins fell into my bag, that would be okay too.

  • Squishy yarn is fun. I’m a sucker for books and camels

  • Oh goodness, I just love looking for that perfect yarn for a baptismal shawl for my first born grandchild! Not sure when I will have a grandchild, tho I’d like to be ready!

  • In a half hour of rummaging, I would be delighted if I could find some project bags that I forgot I had had!!!

  • Chocolate. I have two young children and haven’t learned to drink coffee

  • Atlas!

  • I would love to find Rowan Felted Tweed!

  • 1 of each color of Atlas

  • A good find would be the perfect shade of ombre/variegated yarn to finish my shawl. I thought I’d bought enough and now the yarn is discontinued so bleurgh. It was a cheaper version yarn, so I can’t really find a left over, but something close would be fine.
    And also, anything fluffy would do, to whip up a shawl!

  • Realistic: A few random balls of Rowan Felted Tweed for all those colorful little squares in the Kaffe Fassett Painterly Cowl. I have a few balls saved up from a very colorful scarf pattern, but I still have some gaps to fill on the color chart.

    Dream: There was a woman on Antiques Road Show who found a Faberge pill box worth nearly $20K in her thrift store jewelry bundle.

  • Rowan Denim.

  • I love books, in particular at the moment, i am searching for any book with patterns by arne & carlos. Favorite haunts…used book stores, thrift shops, library book sales!

  • Anything “soft and squishy” with a burst of color. Trying to get out of a neutral rut. Life is too short for everything to be bland! Lol.

  • The perfect buttons for the sweater on my needles from my button bin. Finding the perfect buttons from the button Tim brings me so much joy!

  • I would have to say yarn first and books second. Love rummaging to see what I can find and third would be kitchen gadgets!!

  • I love rummaging at Estate sales here in the Villages. I love finding something that makes my heart sing! Last week I found an old Mah Jongg set, a hand painted pitcher from Portugal (where my husband and I fell in love!) and a much needed hammer! Not much yarn to be found here in Florida but I keep looking!

  • I would love to try some Felted Tweed, as I have not had the pleasure. When rummaging at home, I most like to run across old photographs.

  • Something wooly and in a cheerful color! Looking through bins of yarn – the thrill of the hunt!

  • worsted weight cashmere. I believe Debbie Bliss had small skeins (almost like unicorn tails) in vibrant colors….used them for making the “Charmed” fingerless gloves…many years ago!

  • Just spent a bit of time rummaging my own bins for yarn for hats, I would love to have some more!

  • Good books in a bargain bin!

  • I absolutely love digging through bins to find discarded treasures! My dream rummage finds would be Rowan, especially tweed and kidsilk haze!!! My temperature blanket is going full-steam ahead this year, but I’ve already planned another for next year, so new-to-me colors would be awesome

  • I’d love time to go through my patterns. Sometimes they get tucked away and forgotten.

  • Yarn, of course, but also good chocolate I hid from everyone else including myself.

  • I would love anything actually that could be in a bin there at MDK.

  • I’d love to find a crazy gradient of a mix of yarns and textures, with at least a bit of yarn that just doesn’t work. Oh wait I can probably find that in my own bins right now-I’m off to play!

  • As most commenting here, I’d like to find yarn – specifically green yarn. And if I had to specify which shade of green yarn, I’d say anything that isn’t pastel green – but I’d like that too if that’s all that’s available.

  • I would love to find a stash of DK for a blanket I’m knitting in blues, greens and purples! Stripes work too!

  • I’d love to find some self patterning yarns designed by Arne and Carlos. Or some colorful felted tweeds.

  • At the moment, it would be the perfect contrasting yarn for this gorgeous sock yarn I recently bought (turquoise with speckles of golden brown and sunny yellow). I thought I had some leftovers or minis that would work but none of them are quite right 🙂

    Though in my experience, the true joy of rummaging is the unexpected find, the thing you didn’t know you’d love until you found it.

  • Oh what fun! I would love to find a couple of Freia shawl balls.

  • Tynd would be an exciting find.

  • Yarn would be first and foremost even though I don’t need more yarn. MDK has so many lovely yarns that the bins you mentioned would be a real treat. Also the Atlas yarn sounds yummy. Heck, all your yarn is wonderful – I’d be happy with any and all. 🙂 Have a great day.

  • Any yarn is a welcome surprise. It may find its way into a striped sweater, a hat, or scarf. The light and airy yarn used in the gossamer would be extra fun.

  • I mean, yarn for sure, but also fabric scraps, art supplies and the metaphorical bin of my sister and my mother’s closets . . . which i do rummage through shamelessly.

  • Oh, I would be so very happy to dig through those bins of yarn, any bins of yarn actually. Even my own – I have some rather vintage stash and it’s still fun to go back and look at it and I always find a forgotten treasure. I would also like to go door-to-door in my town and ask to see what pens everyone is using. I still won’t buy fancy expensive pens, but I have become a bit of a pen snob and now want to research all of them!

  • It would be yarn for sure. Who couldn’t resist the hunt for that lone ball of cashmere or silk/merino that challenges your creativity?

  • Oh my gosh, I would have been happily rummaging through those bins and rearranging my treasures til someone shouted, “Turn the lights out when you leave, okay?” In my fantasy rummage, I’d be looking for Hektos in those subtly layered blues and greys. And maybe browns and greens. Anything but red/pink/purple, because I’d be knitting for myself. I’ve wondered for a long time how that particular combination of fibers would work and wear, so…research! Wow, what a fun thing to think about – thanks, Kay 🙂

  • I can’t ever have enough sock yarn!

  • Yarn is always fun to rummage through. I have a couple of gallon jars of buttons that are fun to sift through from time to time.

  • Finding gems of some rich hues would be a surprise delight for a scarf for next season.

  • Laura S. said silk sari ribbon. I definitly agree. Also cashmere, because….. duh of course. But really any yarn. I’m tempted to say other craft suppplies, but truthfully, no It’s just yarn. Always yarn. 🙂

  • Oohhh! I’d love to find some freia balls or some spincycle! Or the perfect pair of black boots in my size.

  • If it’s yarn, I want it!! I have a lovely collection already (lots of Ooh, pretty! purchases in my stash).

  • Besides yarn, I love rummaging through my boxes of old letters from friends and family.

  • Spincycle, Felted Tweed, Kidsilk Haze, all in the purest brightest colorways available. Also, the rosewood straight needle that went missing from my checked luggage years ago.

  • A speckled yarn or a yarn that I forgot all about buying.

  • I’d love to find every color of Rowan felted tweed. I have quite a collection and think I might knit a marked sweater, and a blanket. It is such a wonderful yarn with soooo many colors.

  • Probably some scrumptiously soft and snuggly baby alpaca yarn.

  • Such a great idea! I would love to find anything from one of those bins – your stock items are all winners. But then, maybe a Freia minikin or some LettLopi would be good as well. Thanks.

  • Yarn for sure. Also, at a certain exclusive grocer now owned by Amazon, the cheese counter usually has a basket of “cheese ends”. Small pieces that are the last of big wheels or blocks of specialty cheeses. MAny a delightful taste has come from searching around and finding a little something in there!

  • I would spend a half-hour, or more, in a bookstore, searching for books I want to read, but can’t find at the library.
    My second choice would be a yarn store, spent just touching the stock.
    Thanks for a great idea for a give-away.

  • I would like to find a cure for Trigger Finger so I can knit more.

  • Cotton is my go to yarn for most projects or baby yarns for the blankets I make the most, but I would really like to find a rummage bin of cakes or the actual thick blanket yarn so I can give it a try (it intimidates me a little).

  • I would love to find a forgotten skein of hand-dyed, luxurious (i.e., merino, cashmere, silk, or some dreamy combo) yarn. What a lovely surprise.

  • I’m currently itching to try some of knittin’ bro’s yarn

  • Amazing

  • A bin of Rowan yarns & Liberty prints would make me one if the happiest ladies on Earth.

  • woolfolk tov dk

  • I just love squishing the yarn. So I’d be delighted to play in the boxes if only to feel around. I would love to find an extra pair of scissors (not sure why they’d be hiding in the yarn though lol). I always seem to misplace mine around my home.

  • I love discovering yarn with unusual or unique colors. Sometimes the coloring is intentional, sometimes it’s a dye mistake. I also love finding yarn layered with color where it appears different in differing types of lighting. And, if dug down and found vicuña yarn, my heart would burst with joy!

  • Some sturdy wool for a sturdy sweater, maybe in dark red

  • Angora or mohair, KidSilk Haze kinda stuff. Really, any yarn would make me happy because I love it all.

  • Yes, I have a stash and have inherited legacy stash from people I don’t even know, and yes, I do participate in Adoration of the Fibers rituals, but… When my grandparents “left home” my uncle conducted “What do you want?” tours. Several items had already been earmarked for me by other family members. “She needs this.” I told my uncle that a cousin “needed” a set of luncheon plates, before we saw that the pattern was her very name. But I got what *I* wanted: GRAMMA’S BUTTON CAN. It’s been more than 20 years now, and I still go through this old toffee tin and its treasury of buttons, recalling the woman who saved them and the lives they represent.

  • Atlas!!!!

  • I love finding long forgotten patterns as I look through my crate of pattern folders. I especially enjoy seeing the notes I’ve added—whom the item was made for, and when, what yarn I used, and so on.

  • I would love a couple Fria ombre yarn bombs to make the double wide Parralelogram.

  • Ohhhh! Some delicious beautiful colors with soft cozy feel!

  • It would be fun to find some mohair in different colors to use to marl with other yarns. I used a teal blue mohair with 3 different colors of yarn and it was so interesting to see the changes the mohair made.

  • The project I started 6 years ago that seems to have vanished. I would love to find that one in a bin!!!

  • I love to find unusual yarn in my bins, like the nettle/silk/cotton lace weight I discovered Sunday in a frantic dive for a church-appropriate knitting project. (Small and inconspicuous. I really am listening to the sermon.)

  • Yarn, yarn and more yarn!!

  • Yarn of yak! I once won a skein of yak, it was so soft, light and warm! And anything Freia of course.

  • I love all yarns. I live in the Midwest and love warm colors. Pastels have a short wearing time here.
    I would love any amounts of yarn as I enjoy trying different combinations and colors to make hats.
    Your site has given me many ideas and a great deal of information. It keeps me up to date with information on designers, styles and books to keep encouraging me to try new things.

  • Just last night I found a couple of skeins of silk/wool in shades of gray or black. Spent the next few minutes happily figuring out when I can squeeze making myself a hat into my holiday knitting schedule. No idea when I got this yarn. So excited about it.

    Also – buttons. I’m not good at keeping them all in one place. So when I randomly find a button that will work and don’t have to buy one – jackpot!

  • That yarn is having me salivating! My favorite option right now would be yarn and patterns of the quick and easy kind, plus appropriate needles. I absolutely hate winter! The thought of Ukrainians freezing to death on the streets is horrifying; winter here is quite bad enough, leave alone what they’re going through, and that’s before you add the rockets …… Timothy Snyder, a professor at Yale who’s been there recently (like two months back) has a great series of lectures on You Tube, and he said it would help to send them warm clothing. As a Brit of a certain age, and of Scottish descent, my instinct had turned to knitting (though I doubt I’ll live up to the WW2 WI!*) I reckon an Aran or Chunky weight yarn in wool and nylon will be just the thing – warm and hard wearing.
    *Women’s Institute, organized all sorts of backup, notably making jam and knitting, for the war effort.

  • I would love to find a type of yarn that I’ve never knit with before – like a sheep race new to me or angora rabbit or even a brand of yarn I’m unfamiliar with. Whenever I travel I always get a skein or two or yarn from my travels of something I can’t find at home or haven’t heard of.

  • Well, Rowan felted tweed and Freia of course as well as any good linen anything

  • Freia balls, so intriguing or a stash of Rowan Kidsilk haze…..

  • I rummage for sock yarn. I have a TON of sock yarn. I LOVE sock yarn. There isn’t enough in the world.

  • Yarn that I had forgotten that I’d purchased, but that makes me happy all over again.

  • I love sock yarn. Most of my stash is sock yarn (so it doesn’t count) and it is perfect for basically any type of project. My dad asked for a new hat for Christmas? Hold a skein of sock yarn double and it’s perfect.

  • A simple ball of beautiful yarn in a natural fiber that is simple and comfy. Something others might pass over because it’s no longer the “cool kid” in the bin, but she (this ball of yarn) and I know she is destined for something that will become well loved and oft-used: a lovely hat or cowl or a pair of handwarmers that I will cast on immediately. Because “wait until I’m done with my current project” is a language I never understood. And every time I put this new cowl or hat or pair of handwarmers on, I will smile, knowing that once more the universe has conspired to create something beautiful. And loved.

  • I love to dig through bins of miscellaneous balls of yarn! The first place I head at my local yarn shop is the clearance bin, where I have found many a treasure! I especially enjoy finding sock yarn or some random knitting gadget that I never knew I needed, but can’t live without.

  • I enjoy working with tweed but I’ve never used felted. I’d like to try some. Perhaps enough for a hat or scarf.

  • I love a good “treasure hunt”. I’d love to find some coordinating bright/neutral colors. The type of yarn that I could use to make a hat that calls for like 7 different colors. And knitting tools. Is there any such thing as too many stitch markers?

  • Lovely little sparkly, beaded, sequin things that glisten!

  • I would love to find some quiviut yarn. I’ve always wanted to knit something with a luxurious fiber like quiviut. One can dream.

  • I did this once (about 10 years ago) at my local Tuesday Morning store! Apparently, I hit a day they had just put out yarn! I was new to knitting and the British100% wool yarns blew my mind! I matched the skeins and straightened the shelf as if I worked there and bought a bundle. Using a stitch dictionary from my local library, I just knit scarfs, learning and practicing. Discovery quickly that i love knitting lace!

  • Yarn, of course, but even better—books. I cannot pass up any kind of used book sale, and almost never leave without something.

  • I would like to find a sweater quantity of felted tweed, linen quill, and brown sheep yarn in a project bag

  • I would love a half hour to rummage through a bin of quality beaded yarn. I see it in magazines and books but have actually never used it. The glam of beaded yarn just thrills me.

  • I’d love to find any weight yarn in my favorite colors, teal and purple. One can never have too many scarves!

  • I just found some Aran weight Colourworks by Kaffe Fasset — enough for half a sweater — at a thrift store. I NEED enough of a complementary blue color to finish out the yaedage.

  • I would love to find some Rowan Big Wool. It is great for hats. It will keep you dry even in a major snow storm if your car goes down in a ditch and you have to wait outside for a tow truck on the side of the road. ‍♀️

  • Legos.

  • I would love to find yarns that would go with the wonderful Icelandic purple yarn and the yak purple yarn my daughter has brought to me from their countries of origin….I’d like to make a hood with long arms to wrap around my neck so I can feel like she’s hugging me.

  • Mini-skeins.

  • I would like to find enough yarn of the same dye lot to make a matching hat, a l-o-n-g scarf, and gloves!

  • Only thing to compete with yarn is fabric!! Any textile I can fondle is heavenly!

  • Minikins! A bin of those little colorful balls of happiness would brighten my day no end.

  • almost anything from Spincycle–in cool colors–or jsut about any R Felted Tweed.

  • I totally feel the thrill of anticipating hidden treasures in those bins! I would love to find some fingering weight yarns, perhaps cashmere or close, to use for all the sweater mending I’m in the midst of! Darn moths!

  • I would love to find a sharp pair of scissors when I have an envelope to open or a thread to snip!

  • I want to find Freia, Freia, and more Freia…any color, any weight, any amount.

  • Rowan’s discontinued Denim wool yarn…I didn’t know about it until it was too late!

  • Someone else’s random tub of yarn! It would be like being on Chopp’d and coming up with something glorious to make with random ingredients.

  • I would love to find some DK yarn. Alas, I only have a few balls in my stash.

  • Some *discontinued* yarn! Summer Tweed would be fantastic

  • Two shawl balls to do the parallelogram shawl….or maybe lots of Rowan felted tweed to do Kaffe Fasset pillows. Choosing is so tough!

  • Anything cashmere!

  • Noro silk garden in any shade, they all go together beautifully and I keep all the partly used balls for my next project. If I couldn’t find Noro it would be any kind of gorgeous Freia. Felted tweed is next in line followed by Jamieson’s Oh who am I kidding? just let me at the box,

  • I love finding a project/kit I bought and forgot about. It’s like Christmas any time of the year

  • Love all yarns, our guild does a lot of charity knitting. For me cotton blends as it’s warm in Charleston most of the time!

  • My dream find would be cashmere yarn.

  • What would I like? Hmm, something I’ve never used before, like Wi-Fi alpaca, felted tweed. Maybe a ham blend. I d really like it in a fingering to sport o or DK blend as heavier weights are hard for me to knjt . All wrapped up in a cute bag and a mug for not chocolate! Can you tell I’m cold?

  • I’d love to discover some super bulky or bulky yarn, enough to knit a beanie! Happy Holidays!

  • Euroflax…I knit dishcloths to gift hostesses. Thank you!

  • Enough Kidsilk Haze and Helix, perhaps in a pale blue, to make Joji’s Like a Cloud cardigan!

  • Any pure wool in Pinks, Purples and Grays. My stash is low on these colors right now!

  • I would love to find the cashmere and silk yarn I once found in Switzerland and used to make the warmest gloves I’ve ever had.

  • A precious ball of cashmere, just enough to make the little Sophie scarf!

  • Mohair, mohair, and more mohair! And mini-skeins! And gradients! And cashmere! Oh let the rummaging begin!!

  • The second sock of an orphaned pair — that would just light my day up

  • They don’t precisely mix but lots of cheerful yarn and cheesecake!

  • A yarn surprise! What fun!

  • I lost my stash in a fire so right now any yarn. But if I was stash digging I’d like the perfect yarn in the right quantity for whatever project I’m just in love with at that moment. Purples and blues or beautiful slow changing variegated.

  • Yarns of any fiber (except cotton) in shades of red and/or pink!

  • For me, I think the best stash surprises are finding enough of one thing to make the project in my head at that moment.

  • I would love to get my hands on anything mohair or something that I could felt into dryer balls!

  • Yarn, specifically anything lacy and fuzzy that can be held with something else to give the beautiful halo of “ooh”. Mohair, cashmere, etc.

  • I love going through bins of lighter weight yarn (sport, fingering, or lace) in solids or mostly solids to make my own combos. Wool, silk, alpaca, even opossum, all are a delight to the senses. My love of fiber and texture far outstrips my funds and available space.

  • A $20 bill. You know it’s exciting to find one, forgotten in a pocket, even if you don’t need it.

  • Felted Tweed…any color(s)! Yum!!!

  • Dreaming about one day getting my hands on enough vicuña to knit a shawl…

  • I’m always excited about woolen spun finds, or soft alpaca, the one extra speckled skein.

  • Cashmere!

  • I’d love to find some really bright colors of any yarn because I always tend towards neutrals and blues and it would push me out of my comfort zone for once.

  • Any Brooklyn Tweed or Stolen Stitches yarn!

  • Lots and lots of funky color mini skeins!

  • Any solid-coloured fingering weight yarn. I have oodles of variegated yarns looking for contrasting heels and toes.

  • Yarn…all of the colors and textures, but also buttons! I love hunting for beautiful buttons and finding matching ones in a bin full of mismatched ones. The perfect buttons for a sweater are like the cherry on top. As a kid I loved playing with my grandmother’s “button box” full of pretty buttons.

  • I love Atlas! I would scoop up all the colors!!!

  • I’m always looking for dk or sport weight and small amounts of really yummy textures to dress my version of Dolores and her cousin Victorine Those sheep and I have been having so much fun exploring Europe and our little corner of the Midwest.

  • Surprise me!

  • I’ve been looking down the rabbit hole that is a new appreciation for mohair. I’m mostly looking, but the edge is getting crumbly…so, that’d be nice to find in a rummage. Either that, or the pocket of time I lost, or that pesky pixie that keeps stealing my stitch markers!

  • I would love to find some Theodora Pearls yarn to be creative with using any colorway.

  • I would love to find another ball of the sock yarn that is just like the pair I knit that became my husband’s favorite. Have not seen the colors or yarn like it since I knit them over 10 years ago.

  • Any wool yarns in blues and greens or coral and aqua colors would be a great find!

  • I love odd balls and dreaming up a way to use them.

  • I love purples and pinks, so I would love to find some soft fluffy wool in these colors.

  • Yarn in a color that I would never choose myself. It would be so fun to knit something completely different.

  • The Christmas tree stand!!!

  • I love a surprise! I recently had the pleasure of knitting with Yak. I liked it more than I thought I would.

  • That elusive selfstriping yarn from years ago…the colors of Monet, it was..
    and some almost complete socks…nope, oops, found those!

  • Jewel toned yarn. The rich blues,reds and greens make me simply go crazy!!

  • Dyed in the Wool from Spincycle. I just love looking at that yarn and I never have any left at the end of a project.

  • A lovely animal fiber fingering weight yarn.

  • The Freia shawl balls definitely keep catching my eye!

  • I would be thrilled with colorful yarn! I seem to have way too much grey in my stash!

  • The magical colors o f Freia balls are enchanting.

  • I would love to find something soft and drapey.

  • Jamison & Smith Aran weight and/or Lettloopi.

  • I do so love sport and dk weight yarn in many colors for hats and mitts

  • Suri alpaca, felted tweed, atlas, anything would be fun to try. Love to stash dive and try new yarns and different combinations. New colors that I don’t usually use would be a fun adventure! All the things!!

  • My cookbooks, recipes sought after by others. I have difficulty not buying new ones. Resorted now to rescuing ones from sales and auctions.

  • I have been wanting Shibui Knits Dune yarn for ages. I also love linen and hemp yarn.

  • I think it’s so hard to pick just one thing I want to stumble across, it depends on the day. I do know that rummaging through something like that brings me such joy and peace. It never gets old, like a little kid in a candy store, or someone on an excursion.
    It could be a rock, a stick, silk yarn, a cotton yarn with beautiful colors, a gorgeous cashmere that feels amazing. Again, depends on the day. The smallest thing can bring the biggest joy.

  • Sorry Yarnies, but it would have to be a fabric stash. I find oddments of quilting cotton to be so much easier to rehome to a quilt top than getting orphan yarn into my knitting. But I’m willing to give it a shot…hence my comment.

  • i have a semi-photographic memory. it’s not at cam jansen level, but i can generally trace items back to where i believe i last saw them. however, i am also a semi-packrat (particularly of yarn, it is most definitely at S.A.B.L.E. level) so there is often a lot of rummaging, sometimes taking more than half an hour for that particular skein i’m desperately seeking. i don’t ALWAYS find it but i then i often stumble upon another treasure that i’d forgotten about and my knitting plans may get sidetracked!

    • Cashmere scraps are always welcome! I’m starting to do scrappy hats so anything really works!

  • Yarn, most definitely, or old pattern instructions, or knitting needles, or any type of knitting notions. My family just doesn’t get why I’m obsessed with knitting stuff. (And maybe gardening magazines. I have a thing for them as well.)

  • Oooo! It would be exciting to find bits of your Atlas yarn, which I’d love to try! I just ordered some for my sister for Christmas! Shhh, don’t tell!

  • I’d love to find 2-3 contrasting skeins of cashmere worsted yarn so I could start yet another search for the perfect pattern in which to use them.

  • I would love to find Qiviut or Vicuna yarn! I have never knit with either so I’d like to find even a small amount to experiment with.

  • Right now I want to rummage through leftovers from long ago and find the exact yarn I used for the blanket that has a hole in it. Fingers crossed!

  • Any soft, squishy yarn in a vibrant color!

  • I would love to find something that would challenge my knitting skills to create something of interest, color matters not!

  • Yarn that is all alone and in need of a home, who has a few friends who would like to come along also. Maybe we could have a yarn party and they could meet other friends and end up in some amazing project that they didn’t even know they belonged in. Then they could life a useful, long and happy life!

  • Cashmere of course!

  • I would love to find Mohair yarn, felted tweed, self striping, Freia and all the colors of yarn!! Oh, and Malabrigo Rios. Love making hats out of all of the above!

  • I’d love to find some beautifully soft not wool yarn. Wool makes me itch and I don’t need the warmth living on the Gulf Coast.

  • Always check the sale bucket in a yarn shop. Currently in hoping to find a long repeat ball in any color to tackle a marl project.

  • Natural fibers, no nylon for me please. Could you do an article on yarn storage solutions?

  • That spare electric toothbrush I KNOW is somewhere in the house

  • I would love to find some sparkly mohair to pair with a nice fingering yarn for a holiday wrap or scarf

  • Id love to find a couple of balls of cashmere. Better yet a sweater quantity!

  • What odd bit of yarn would I love to find, maybe in my own yarn closet? Koigu (actually did find a bunch of that in some bins of yarn given to me, made a shawl for a friend) OR anything substantially alpaca — not lace weight, not fingering. Worsted. Lots of chunky alpaca.

  • A little bit of qiviut. A whole skein, even better!

  • One of those colors and soft textures of yarn that just makes me want to eat it up, if you understand that feeling.

  • I am one skein short of Mostly Merino from Joie de Vivre Farm in Deep Forest to make the most perfect thing for my beloved sister-in-law. To find that would be…unbelievable.

  • Normally I hate surprises, but not yarn surprises – they are the best! I think it would be so fun to spend time digging through my bins of yarn and find some thing in a sweater quantity that I’d completely forgotten about. And if it was some iteration of olive green, all the better.

  • Freia yarn balls? More felted tweed? Any kind of yarn goodness!

  • Felted tweed. Felted tweed. Felted tweed. What’s the question?

  • I would love to find a lovely batch of Rowan kidsilk haze to use in the doubled multi colored shawl/throw that I am inventing!!

  • I would love to find skeins of anything with cashmere in it! So soft. I could make a pair of fingerless mitts for my boss. Her hands are always cold sitting at her computer.

  • I’m totally into knitting the Sophie Scarf by PetiteKnit. So for me, it would be a dive that comes up with beautiful 50g balls of fingering weight!

  • I’d love to find more Vicuna!

  • All things Freia as there are infinite ways to put the to good use! And of course, Felted Tweed, for the very same reason!

  • I’m 100% into the Felted Tweed bin. I’m obsessed with the colors, the slight variations and the strong ones. I have my own bin and can’t wait to finish my current project(s) so I can dig in and make a grand intarsia project with them all!

  • I would love finding a Freia shawl ball or two under my Christmas tree. The colors are so beautiful.

  • A skein of fingering Freia would be fun – love the long bursts of color! I used one of these when I knit the Molden Shawl – interspersed with a blue/charcoal. The shawl was gorgeous.

  • Hi! In one happy half hour of looking through my/someone’s yarn stash…
    I’d be looking for some self striping sock yarn OR scraps of blue and/or pink yarns. I just love combining colors for MARLING. Darling.

  • Cotton worsted, in blue, yellow, orange, or purple. I need to get back to knitting chair seat covers, and I have red and green.

  • Simple. I’d be thrilled to experience wandering through the yarn itself. Sounds so peaceful!

  • Two matching skeins of something indulgent like a mcn or suri. I also have a weakness for pastel super bulky yarn…like knitting with marshmallow

  • Antique needlework tools

  • I’ve never tried Big Wool, Kidsilk Haze, or Felted Tweed. Would love those or (let’s be honest) anything as I love trying new yarns or new colors!

  • Multicolored hand dyed yarn, old lace, Liberty of London fabric.

  • I lust after the Kidsilk Haze every time it comes up and the Freia shawl balls call to me.

  • I would be thrilled to find a Spincycle yarn–oh the fun I would have!

  • I would definitely snatch up a ball (or several) of Rowan Felted Tweed as I have heard so much about it and have never tried it. I have also been looking for single breed yarns of late. I have been having a good time trying some of the heritage breeds-so rustic, but hearty!

  • I’d like to find some cute empty bins to store more yarn! I’ve started to organize my stash and it’s getting a little out of hand! But, yes, I would love some pretty cotton yarn to replace what I used for Christmas dishcloths!

  • felted tweed has been my favorite yarn for many years. kid silk haze is moving up on the list. thank you rowan and MDK

  • Felted tweed or fria

  • Rowan felted tweed!

  • I would love to rummage and find cool cottons and bamboo. They drape so beautifully! Merry Christmas everyone.

  • Aside from yarn, it would definitely be BOOKS. I went to a play last night and they had a bookshelf on stage and I REALLY wanted to get up and there just look through all the books (after the play was over, of course). I restrained myself.

  • The favorite thing I ever found in a rummage bin was a lot (ok, two skeins) of Filatura di Crosa Superior – silk and cashmere.

  • Some stray kidsilk haze would be lovely, either for a little item on its own, or to knit in with something else. Maybe I’ll try adding to socks as per a comment below!

  • If I were rummaging for a half hour, I would love to find buttons! Shopping for buttons can be challenging due to the vagaries of screen colors and trying to find sizes. If I were to find a stash of a variety of buttons that would be a lot of fun!

  • Almost anything can be found in a good rummage in my knitting/sewing/photography/big roll-top desk room and frequently is! Sometimes in avalanches of yarn I find a shoe, partial quilt, single curtain that I have attempted to match or from which I have tried to gain inspiration. I love a good scavenger hunt!

  • I love to rummage through yarn, fabric & buttons. Finding some unexpected Spincycle would be awesome.

  • I would love to just have a surprise gift of anything.

  • If not yarn, then books!!

  • Any yarn that would make a squishy cowl to keep my neck warm in our MN winter.

  • Rustic yarn please! I love the yarns that still have the lanolin smell. Many of my favorites may even have some bits of straw entangled in the ply. Nothing better than being outside in the fall or winter wearing an item made from these yarns

  • Some nice soft alpaca yarn, especially in blue

  • I’d love to find about 47 more years of life so I can do justice to my beautiful stash!

  • Love discovering! Fuzzy yarns, Rowan anything, hand dyes are mesmerizing. Buttons and beads add to the excitement!

  • For a rummaging reward; yarn is always good, or a top that goes with everything, or a kitchen tool that I can’t live without. I love rummaging!

  • My favorite yarn finds are cashmere and wool. Doesn’t matter the color! The feel of natural fiber on my skin is the best!

  • To start with, I love a half-hour of rummaging in what I like to call my work room. I usually know, at least vaguely, where something might be, but often I find surprise treasures that have slipped my mind. Most recently, I found a loom for darning socks that I was hunting but which eluded me for weeks, and even more recently, after a middle of the night awakening revelation, a pair of doll shoes! High top button boots! I thought I had those, but had no idea where they might be. They are for a thrift store doll my teenage grand daughter found, and she will be very glad to have them.

  • I would love to find some TIME to knit and crochet all the beautiful yarn I already have! In all seriousness, I’d go for something cashmere and purple so I can make something luscious for my daughter. I’m new to knitting my so maybe a luxury set of circular needles, too. I’m sounding a bit needy… happy holidays, everyone!!

  • It would be great to find some discontinued yarn – Rowan fine tweed & interesting buttons.

  • Felted Tweed. Totally In Love with Felted Tweed!

  • a “way-cool” sweater pattern and enough yarn to make it with

  • Yarn! Fancy yarn especially! Cashmere, yak, camel, silk, suri, mohair! Oh, I’d be in heaven!

  • I’d love to try the felted tweed in fun and different colors! Also, any mohair would be a delight 🙂

  • I have yarn dreams like everyone else, but they are not in my stash currently, so no matter how hard or long I looked, they ain’t ever popping up…lol.
    but a dream would be to have endless number of ppl who loved wearing/owning knitted items, to knit for. Then to have every needle size needed per pattern; every yarn color with enough in the same lot for that project to choose from; all with bright lights to knit with, in a comfy cozy crafty space to knit. 7/24/365 knitting heaven….lol.
    But a nice color selection of various mohair types to play with would be fun. Happy knitting!

  • In a happy half hour of rummaging, I’d like to find some yummy DK or worsted weight yarn to make some cozy bed socks.

  • The needles in the size I am needing right now for casting on!

  • Yarn that is beautifully squishy, in colors that remind me of spring to come.

  • A lovely heathered yarn in winter colors.

  • I am in love with a variegated pink boucle yarn from JoAnn Fabrics that I once owned but used up for a fun Valentine’s Day project. The boucle has long been gone from JoAnn’s line, but I still long to find one of the small skeins at a thrift store or garage sale. Maybe someday…

  • I’m going to say two things (cheater! cheater!) – I’d be happy to find my vanishing point fountain pen, but yarn is always good to find, and if I had a secret (to me) stash of felted tweed I might soil myself in joy (a bit abject for a Saturday morning, but I need to communicate a definitive loss of control).

  • Yarn, for sure. Solid-coloured sock yarn or a slightly rustic heathered DK or worsted.

  • Rowan Felted Tweed – so versatile, perfect weight, lovely colors!

  • Books! It’s the one thing I love almost as much as yarn. I also love finding little craft projects I had forgotten about – a needle felting set, an embroidery kit, etc.

  • Searching through my own bins, I’d love to find the 4th size 5 DPN I’m missing! Haha. If I’m bin shopping at my LYS then some delicious red or purple soft, squashy yarn just hoping to become a little holiday scarf for me!

  • Christmas red cashmere yarn!

  • Rowan felted tweed. All the colors. All day long

  • I have been working on a pair of advent socks—you know, the kind where you knit a stripe a day for 24 days and end up with a finished sock? I am loving using the self-striping yarn so much that I am actually a few days ahead and have started the second one to control myself. So I would like to find a few balls of self-striping yarn in that surprise yarn bin. They would be calling my name!

  • I would let the colors sing the song! I think I spy Pantone’s 2023 color of the year, Magenta!
    XOXO

  • Any freia yarns! I’m itching to knit some but it’s out of my budget…

  • I would love to find moody colors of tov dk or any color of big wool or best surprise – Spincycle!

  • I would love any color I love to knit blankets and socks and hats scarfs or shawls I would love to knit with anything I receive. Thank you so much. Stitch markers progress keepers would be nice to

  • I would like to find my great-grandmother. Failing that, some nice mohair-silk or cashmere yarn.

  • Yarn kits! With the printed pattern in it. Sometimes I make yarn kits with my stash yarn for a particular pattern, print that pattern & put it all in a bag. Planning to start the project after I finish my current WIPs…. It’s like creating a physical queue. It is always a joy to go through them, can’t wait to get to all the knitting!

  • My favorite yarn is sock yarn—perfect for shawls, cowl, scarves and socks!

  • Yarn

  • Big, bulky and variegated!

  • Wool! I love to make felted gnomes and just a little bit of wool can turn in to a wee hat or scarf or hair or …

  • I love yarn, especially soft and one that doesn’t make me itch, however…. if I happened to find a bin of new-to-me old family photos, that’s where I would happily spend my half hour. And many more half hours.

  • I would love to find the yarn that so many dislike knitting with….MOHAIR. I adore the look and feel of it by itself or combining it with other yarns. Any weight or color. I want to make a ‘stash’ sweater of vertical stripes that a knitting friend wore when we got together recently. I have a small collection of a few colors and some variegated yarns that I will incorporate at whim. My stash is now displayed on shelves by color so that when I walk into my guest room/work studio I can see all it’s loveliness. When I see a project that I love, I just turn around and look at all the possibilities in my stash. It’s such fun and so comforting to know there is yarn at my fingertips (no pun intended) for a rainy day or a new pattern idea. Partial skeins, odd colors, they all work for me!

  • Anything Spincycle!

  • The ultimate find for me would be a complete copy of the out-of-print Tarot deck, The Collective Tarot, but aside from that, it would come down to books and/or yarn. I’ve been admiring Karida Collins’ beautiful yarn and designs for a while, so would love to find a bargain DK or worsted skein or three from NFC. And I’m firmly in the “so many books, so little time” camp, witness my teetering TBR pile(s).

  • Right now the thing I’d most like to find is my cat’s favorite toy. This one is not one of the ones I made for her, but she loves it.

  • After reading coastal grandma, I would love to find a khaki compatible delft or cornflower blue to inspire a Keatoneasque Gotta Give project.

  • I would love to find a just short of finished set of socks. A missing toe or rib left to bind off to make a perfect set to add to a collection would be perfect.

  • Qiuvit

  • A half hour to browse through anything I want. Let’s see. Definitely yarn, any kind but probably not bulky. Knitting accessories and notions. Books, mostly good historical fiction. Paper, yes paper (I love having nice notecards to organize knitting info and pretty stationery to write notes), and what would life be like without chocolate>

  • I would love to find some baby alpaca yarn!

  • Yarn of course and any pair of vintage needles or shuttles or scissors. I just love gadgets!!!

  • I would love to find knitting books! Any books! Any sock yarn and addi needles…

  • I’d love to find that all my WIPs are FINISHED!!

  • Strange you should ask. I’ve been haunting the craft shelves of the local thrift shop, and have been wondering whether I’m spending too much time there. I get there when the doors open. A life, you say? Well, it will serve for one….I recently found a good amount of Bartlett’s 2-ply, dyed a garnet-like hue. Snagged it. Found a nice darning egg with a stem. Snagged it.

    Hoping to find an entire bin of fabulous 100% non-superwash wool from any era. Will snag.

  • This may sound crazy but I would like to find some acrylic yarn in soft colors for the newborn baby hats I knit for babies born at Parkland Hospital, Dallas. I didn’t have much acrylic yarn in my stash because I prefer natural fibers but babies can be messy and mothers are too busy to hand wash.

  • Fingering or worsted merino

  • If it was yarn I was rummaging through, it would be to find a ball of qiviut to try or maybe a ball of cashmere…

  • Yarn, any yarn! Another think I would especially like to find would be a stray project bag, I could never have enough small project bags.

  • Love finding wool yarn in the craft supply bins at my local thrift shop. Bonus points for a label attached. 🙂

  • I’d love to find any hand-dyed, non-wool yarn, as it is so hard to find. Love finding what I don’t expect.

  • I’d love to find a couple matching bales of Fiberspates Culumus (or something very similar)so I could make another Quilted Feather shawl. Don’t care what colour it is

  • I am hoping that Santa Snippets sends me enough skeins of a delicious mohair blend in vibrant color to create a small shawl/scarf. I ask this because I have been SO good in tackling my stash this year.

  • Definitely Rowan Felted Tweed but anything stash and crafty is always inspirational.

  • Any yarn!… but 100% wool is my favorite… either worsted weight, fingering, sport, Aran… even needlepoint yarn

  • I’d love anything Felted tweed please!

  • Balls and balls of Rowan Felted Tweed! I could (and have) looked at Felted Tweed colors for hours on end, often being paralyzed by color indecision from the vast array.

  • Freight of course!

  • Seriously, only one yarn?! No.no I waiver between Felted Tweed, Kidsilk Haze ,and any Zaberball Sock. Can’t help myself.

  • A nice sheepy yarn, enough for a cozy cardigan… even better if accompanied by some amazing vintage buttons!

  • Yarn, embroidery floss, perle cotton, fabric….

  • Definitely yarn! I recently did just this with my daughter, and it was delightful. Apparently I bought a LOT of McMahon’s Farm yarn in New Zealand in the 80s.

  • I would love to find a great gradient yarn in a non-wooly fiber plus a single color yarn that pops nicely with the gradient. Or a yummy quirky yarn in a fun color.

  • I’d love to find an unusual shawl pin or yarn that isn’t like anything I have in my stash.

  • I do recall finding some unexpected Malabrigo in a bag once upon a time (only because I’d managed to have forgotten about it). I’d be OK with finding several skeins I’d previously forgotten about all over again.

  • I covet non-superwash yarns in non-traditional wools. Yak is my favorite, but I am highly susceptible to camel. It’s my dream to have a sweater quantity in one of these fibers, and to try quiviut yarn. Of course, I enjoy mohair, suri, Alpaca, and many types of sheep and goat wool, as well. My dream stash would be divided not just by weight, but by creature, too!

  • Anything with silk in it is my first choice. Or a shawl quantity of black for a warm & lightweight shawl. Or alpaca. Or bamboo. I am a yarn addict.

  • I love looking through my stash and seeing all of the yarn I have purchased on trips! Always such good memories plus beautiful yarn!!!

  • A completed crochet square in variegated yarn and enough of the same yarn to make a few more, with the puzzle of figuring out the square pattern on my own

  • I wish I had little mini skeins of fingering. Those would be fun to find.

  • Is that Rowan kidsilk?

    I’d love to find some of that in a rummaging.

  • I love to refind my Shabui yarns.

  • I am game for any surprise!

  • I really liked making my knitted brown sheep wool rug! Would love to make more mittens out of that thick warm wool in divergent colors!

  • I would likely find alpaca yarn, and lots of it since we have our own alpaca herd.

  • Shawl balls! Nothing but shawl balls!

  • Finding some beautiful Freia or self striping would be exciting!

  • Colorful yarn is my choice, The Freia cakes and Lettlopi have caught my eye many times.

  • A bit of Atlas yarn. Even a discontinued color or just a snippet large enough to get a good feel for this yarn. When $$ permit I’m going to order a skein or two to pet s as I decide what project to make

  • I would love to find some quality angora and alpaca yarn in a gold rummage session – maybe one day!

  • Black or charcoal mohair with glittery stuff in it to make a jacket

  • Yarn, of course:), especially if it was some combination of blues, purples, and greens!

  • I would like to find enough skeins of Rowan Kidsilk Haze in a variegated purple and blue color way to make their poncho. Alas, it’s no longer available!

  • Definitely yarn and also a set of curtain rings I’ve been looking for everywhere.

  • For me any luxury yarn found would be well…a luxury for me. My yarn budget is close to zero with Christmas approaching!!! (Silk & mohair?)

  • Vintage kitchen items like custard cups & Pyrex that is in great condition. Hand washed only. Lol.

  • Lettlopi

  • I would love to find yarn. I understand your excitement Kay!

  • Little balls of cashmere

  • I would love to find white mohair yarn for an ottoman cover project.

  • I think I would just love the surprise of what I would be able to see and touch. My stash is fingering heavy so finding dk or worsted would be fantastic but if that irresistible fingering weight skein called out I can always find room for it. I have never been brand or fiber specific, too many great options to limit it to one or two brands. I find great fun in receiving grab bags and planning from there!

  • A little cashmere would be lovely.

  • Yarn or fabric!

  • I love going through used book sales. I always hope to find fun cookbooks!

  • A skein for socks

  • Nua Sport. It’s like knitting with a kitten. And finding a kitten in the bind might just be the cutest thing ever.

  • Freia!

  • I would love to fun a soft and lovely yarn suitable to make a hat or cowl for my 10 year old granddaughter who loves my knitting but can’t wear it because “It’s too scratchy, Gram.”

  • Maybe alpaca Sox or something lace weight and shiny!

  • Yarn of course! I’d love to find anything with sea and sky colors.

  • Sock yarn! You can never have too many socks therefore, you can never have too much sock yarn. I also can spend an extraordinary amount of time looking through pens and stationery.

  • Oooo … I’d likely knit a marled toque (hat). I’ve seen some great patterns that use up luscious knitty leftovers, which I have none! Thanks for the giveaway opportunity. Merry Christmas

  • My stash, I know, has many wonders I’ve forgotten that I bought. I am a knitter in love with color. I have at least two dozen skeins of finger weight singles from the various magicians who make this stuff. I’d love to find some of that magic in dk weight.

  • Needles! I never seem to have enough.

  • Don’t laugh – I want to find the empty bin so I can fill it for someone else.

  • Anything with Alpaca content. I just love the feel of it.

  • Yarn is definitely #1on my list, but I also get joy from rummaging the shelves in a used book store or pawing through stacks of old vinyl.

  • I’d most like to find a skein of qiviut or yak yarn. However, if I do, I’m not digging in my own stash. Alas.

  • I would love to find some Suri Alpaca to try since i cannot do mohair. Some of that Felted Tweed…or anything Dk or fingering,

  • Any self-striping sock yarn. These are my favorite take-along projects, and I love how the stripes tinge a memory.

  • Nori yarn. I have almost-a-full-ball that I found at Turnip Green – a Nashville re-use non-profit where you pay what you want. I won’t say how much I paid.

  • I would love to find my half-finished bohus cardigan I started years ago. It was beautiful yarn.

  • Anything fiber related really. Yarn, spinning fiber, spindles, notions, project bags (that one could be very dangerous)…

  • More sock yarn please!

  • I would like to find DK weight of alpaca and merino wool mix yarn. It will be so heavenly.

  • Small balls of a fade to make a doll sweater

  • Oh my, what a loaded question. I’m sure it’s all lovely, but something I wouldn’t necessarily buy like a luxury fiber (just enough to make a little cowl) or the perfect set of minis to make something stripey. And of course sock yarn of any kind.

  • Oh, I would love to find a LARGE hank of 50% linen/50% silk worsted weight yarn! LOL!

  • I would love to find the perfect shade of plum in a soft worsted wool. Simple and special.

  • I want to make some last-minute Christmas balls for my special friends, and I’m searching my stash for white, red and green yarn in sport weight. I think I have some suitable cotton but I’d love to find some nice wool, so much easier to knit with! I love the Atlas Insider each week, and thank you for the opportunity to win someday, maybe, I hope….!

  • In my happy half hour of rummaging, I love to find a beloved yarn I forgot I had or didn’t know in which bin it was stashed. Better still, if I have more than one skein of it.

  • Cashmerino Silk. I love working with it! And it is time to make something for me!

  • I would love to find a yarn winder!

  • Well, as the owner of only six (!) mostly used up skeins of Felted Tweed, I would most definitely join you in rummaging for tidbits. But, I truly pine after a skein of z-twist two ply. I have a few twined knit patterns I wish I could explore. Ok, and then I will always, always accept a luscious skein of super bulky because I love to cranky out beanies during my high school substitute teaching days. And they are so fun to give away here in Iowa to kids and teachers. But those skeins disappear so fast! Ugh!

  • Some pink or lemon yellow mohair or Siri would be nice

  • I’d go for the felted tweed, also. But anything that is different from the “norm” would be great, just because I likely would not have bought it sight unseen (or unsquished).

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