Discarded Treasures

I love looking through charity shops, because you can find absolute treasures amongst the stuff that others have given away. Of course what is a great find to me will not make everybody else's heart racing, which makes it even more exciting when you find something that no one else appears to have any interest in.

Like these two books I picked up the other week for a mere £2.00 each 

The Crochet Scarves is a fairly modern book, published in 2005 and has a few nice ideas in it. To be honest, I mainly bought it because of the shape of the book and because I liked the pattern for the cover scarf a lot. For one pattern alone it would have been worth the price but there are a few others in there that I may try out too.

As for the Knitting and Crochet book from Good Housekeeping, now this is real gem. Published in 1979 you can imagine the images you would find in there, right?

Just like the wonderful vest and jumper for the hip young generation

But crocheting does take the crown in the "what-were-they-thinking" category. I would have disowned my parents had they put my brother and I and this wonderful set of  dungarees

Seriously, the pictures alone made me want to buy the book because I love a trip down memory lane. But the best bit of the book are the fantastic stitch patterns for both crafts. Not only that, this book explains everything you need to know for knitting and crocheting.

If you could only buy one book in your crafty life, this should be it.

Just look at how awesome the different stitches are displayed:

And for knitting there are even instructions for socks and mittens (with and without fingers). For crocheting there are many different blocks and stitches and I have found some bits in there that I intend to share via a CAL (Crochet-A-Long). Hopefully I will get permission from the publishers to share some of the patterns online.

Have you had any wonderful finds lately that made your heart skip with joy?