How to: Have a Gank Day

What is a Gank Day?
Gank Day is a great event where one gets together with his or her friends and everyone brings clothing, accessories, books, etc. that they are no longer interested in. Then people sort through the offerings, and people take what they want.

How to: Have a Gank Day

Step 1: Figure out a day
This seems pretty self explanatory, but you need to figure out when you want to have a gank day. It should be far enough away the people will have time to cull their rooms/houses, but not so far off that they will forget about it. I like to schedule them out 2-4 weeks.

Step 2: Set up a donations pick up/drop off
Chances are there will be some things that no one is interested in. Rather than forcing the person who brought it to take it back home, bag/box up the leftovers and give them to charity. In my neighborhood a charity truck comes around every 2 months. Near my hometown, there is a huge Salvation Army drop off center that accepts donations a few days a week. Figure out where the orphaned things will go before they are left behind.

Step 3: Invite some friends 
It is best if the friends have overlapping taste in clothing, books, whatever people are planning to bring. If you invite a friend who only wears pastels and another who only wears black, chances are they won't be able to use much of each other's clothing. Of course, if you are inviting 10 people with varying tastes and those two people are part of the 10, they could both find things they want in the offerings.

Step 4: Prepare the space
How you want to hold gank day is up to you. Do you want everyone to lay out their stuff in piles, and let people look at stuff at their leisure? Do you want to hold up each article one at a time and let people call out when they want things? Both options work well, depending on the number of people/things involved. Both options also take some prep work.

• Put stuff in piles: There should be enough space so that each person's pile has some breathing room around it. People need to be able to move things around to see what is available, and they should have space to set aside what they choose without having to worry that someone else will take them. If possible, leave a corner available for people to set aside their containers/bags once their stuff is set out, and they can put their new finds into those containers. Important: For this option, you want to leave out as little extra as possible. You don't want your friends to accidentally take some of your decor because they thought it was up for grabs.
• Auction style: People will need comfortable places to sit. For my friends, this includes the floor, so I pretty much always have enough seating. If your friends don't sit on the floor, you might need to pull furniture from other rooms to accommodate.

Step 5: Host Gank Day!
Have some snacks and drinks available. Make introductions when necessary. Rifle through things and hopefully gather a few (free!) additions to your life.

Step 6: Prepare the leftovers
Once all the guests have made their selections, leftover items should be packed up, ready for donations. You can choose to have your friends help with this part, or do it yourself. Just be sure to do it immediately; you don't want all that stuff cluttering up your space.

Step 7: Donate
I'm pretty sure this one is self explanatory.

More about Gank Day
What can people bring?
This is up to you, but some ideas that have worked in the past:
Clothing, shoes, electronics, movies, books, small appliances, food that has been in the pantry that you bought on a whim but know you won't eat (nothing expired, though), bedding, craft supplies, furniture (for large pieces, photographs will suffice), baby/pet accessories... If it goes in a person's home and is still useful though is not being used, I allow it to come to my Gank Day. What you allow is your choice.

How does it work?
People bring stuff. Other people go through it, and take what they want. It is like shopping, but free. Of course, you could choose to have people pay for things; that is on you (or your guests). Whatever works best for you. If you wanted to have a yard sale with the leftovers instead of donating them, that is perfectly acceptable. The main idea is to not throw away perfectly good things just because you don't use them anymore.

What if my friends live far away?
Have an e-party. Use skype or google hangouts to show off your items, then exchange items the next time you see each other, or be prepared to ship things. You could also use photobucket or dropbox to upload photos of your things for people to look at and decide if they want them.

What happens if more than one person wants one item?
Expect this to happen. If you are in that situation and you don't absolutely love it, let it go. If you both think you love it, try it on. Use it for its intended purpose. See if it is something you really need to have. Chances are, one person will like it more than the other.  

What is the point?
There are a lot of pros of Gank Day. You get to rid yourself of some clutter. You have the opportunity to find things that you love without having to spend money. Things have the chance to be useful, rather than sitting in the back of a closet for years. By donating, you keep those items out of a landfill. 

Have you ever had a gank day? How did it go? 

Please leave stories, comments, and questions below.

How to: make a top whorl drop spindle

Maybe you want to make a drop spindle, but you don't want to make a Turkish. If you have a knitting needle and some cardboard, you can make a spindle in about 2 minutes.

You will need:

Materials:

A straight knitting needle

An empty cereal (cracker, pasta, etc) box

A scrap length of yarn (not pictured)

Some fiber so spin

Tools:

Scissors

Ruler

Pen

Optional:

Glue

Markers, crayons, paint, etc.

How to:
1. Cut out the back of the box. Cut the resulting rectangle in half to create two short, wide rectangles. Stack the rectangles.
2. Using the ruler, determine the length of the rectangle. Mark the width to be the same as the length. Cut off the excess.
3. Find the center of the resulting square. Push your knitting needle through the center point of both squares.

Ta da! You have a functional top whorl drop spindle! To use, attach yarn to the shaft below the whorl. Bring the strand over the whorl and use a half hitch to anchor it below the knob on the straight needle. Attach the yarn to the fiber and start spinning!

Optional prettiness:
4. Turn the top square so it is a diamond on top of the bottom square. Glue in place.

5. Once the glue is dry, decorate!

Wondering how well this spindle work? About this well.

Knitting with hand spun

I have been spinning for about a year now. I don't always spin everyday, or spin for long stretches of time, but I do really enjoy the process. Perhaps you remember my how to: make a turkish spindle. Spindles don't have to be particularly expensive, though they certainly can be. Fiber can be obtained for very little (or sometimes no!) cash, or you can purchase rarer, more processed, indie dyed stuff. This search on etsy can give you an idea.  

 When Tour de Fleece 2013 ended, I did a round up post. In that post, I showed a beautiful green yarn I spun. For the first time since last Tour de Fleece, I have knit something with my hand spun! 

These lovelies are made with yarn I spun using 100% BFL from Greenwood Fiberworks in the Adirondack colorway. I did a 2-ply, and got a sport weight. The mitt pattern is Reciprocation by Michelle Hunter. 

I consider these mitts my first project knit with my hand spun. The first yarn that I made was thick and thin, and I made a mug cozy. It is nice, and does keep my tea hot, but... It is garter stitch. There is nothing wrong with garter stitch, mind you, but I wanted to try something a little more complex with my hand spun. So I did cables. Yay cables!

Don't worry that this trend in spinning but not knitting with it will continue.  The spinning project I am currently working on will eventually turn into a 3-ply fingering weight that I intend to make into socks. (Working toward numbers 27 and 28 on my 101 list.) I am almost done with the singles, and can start plying soon.

Saturday 7: Week 21

This week, there was a lot of stuff removed from my place. There were also a few things acquired, because my sister and I had a Gank Day. First, the things I got rid of:

A stack of clothing. There are 24 things in the picture, and she took at least 2 additional bathrobes. (26 things)

Arm warmers I made for her (those don't count), a kindle, and 15 books (one of the books belongs to a friend of mine, so I had to put it back on my shelf). (16 things)

In the spirit of gank day, I acquired a little bit, too. 6 articles of clothing (though I picked out 9 to try on, so I sort of kept to my 2/3 challenge...) and 3 books.

26 things + 16 things - 9 things = 33 things less in my house. 

Total things: 271

Special guest appearance: Amanda's things

This is the stack of adult clothing that Amanda brought that will be donated if none of my friends claim them.

She also brought 6 boxes/bags of books:

Total things: a couple hundred

Sock Yarn Blanket: Week 49

How has your week been? Mine is going pretty well. I got to work on my Sock yarn blanket a lot, so that is good. You know the drill, squares with stitch markers are from this week.

Here are the yarns I will be playing with in the coming week:

I finished one of the pairs of test knit socks this week:

(I am waiting on the rest of the pattern for the other one.)

I also started a test knit of a shawl made using sock yarn - ignore the black, that is not part of the shawl.

258/776, instead of 343 (I am slowly catching up!)

5 Reasons Shopping at the Thrift Shop is AH-MAY-ZING

1. Thrift stores know people aren't going to buy junk. If you haven't been in a thrift shop in a decade or two, you might not realize that most of the racks are filled with name brand stuff in really good condition. Sometimes the clothes even have the original tacks still attached. Seriously. If the clothes are worn or stained when donated, they don't make it to the rack.

2. In many shops, clothes are sorted by article, then color, and sometimes by size, too. That means if you know you want a blue t-shirt in a women's size medium, you only have to check through that particular part of a rack to see if they have a style you like. This is nice for me, since I mostly wear black t-shirts, so I know where to start looking when I want to find something. I'd rather scope out one rack of black t-shirts to find something I like than walk an entire store, looking at t-shirts, hoping that a few of them will be black.

3. For the cost of one t-shirt at the mall, you can get at least 3 at the thrift store. Most thrift stores have weekly sales, though, so if you know what day of the week they have the "All purses and shoes half off until 3pm" sale, you can get 3 pairs of shoes, a bag, and a dress to go with them for less than you will pay for a pair of shoes at DSW.

4. Clothes are already broken in. That means I don't have to worry that my jeans are going to be too lose to wear at the end of a day (brand new jeans lie to me about end-of-day fit all the time). I know how that skirt is going to lay because it doesn't have any of the starch/sizing brand new clothes do that make them look just so on the rack. Thrift shop clothes don't lie like mall clothes do.

5. This is definitely the mom in me showing, but... They sell things other than clothes at thrift shops. Do you know how much a baby saucer costs full price? According to babies r us, about $90. Even with coupons, you can't beat the deal my best friend found - $5. For an activity saucer. That is 95% off! Both of my kids played with it, both of them thought it was awesome, and when I pulled it out of storage to give it to a friend, both kids wanted to play with it again. If you are looking to furnish your place on the cheap and don't mind giving items a little revamp, you can find great deals at a thrift shop.

Note: I know I just posted about wanting to get rid of unwanted clothing, and having less, and how ridiculous I find my closet, but... Eventually, I will need to shop for clothing again. Clothing shopping is a pretty rare thing for me - 2 tank tops at the beginning of this summer, 2 pairs of jeans over last winter, a few sun dresses at the beginning of last summer, about 5 t-shirts from the thrift store in September 2011. Those are my last 4 clothing purchases, not including bras, undies, and shoes (replaced as needed). At the rate my favorite t-shirts are starting to show wear, I will need to replace them in the next year or so. When I do, I will be heading to a thrift shop. (Or, even better, my friends and I will have a gank day - but info on that in an upcoming post.) 

Saturday 7: Week 20

This week, we only got rid of 1 thing, but it was a big one: A large flat screen tv that was taking up space in my craft room closet. Steve sold it for $100, which is way more than it was worth sitting unused in a closet.

Total things: 228

This week is short, and I don't even have a picture. Next week should be more impressive. My sister is going to visit, and I hope she will be taking some of the clothing back with here.