Let’s Talk About Yarn
Lately I have been in a bit of knitting funk. I have produced 2 amazing projects that I am extremely thrilled by. The downside to that is what I call the post project blues, where all my inspiration seems to leave me, and I am just in a funk. It doesn’t always happen, often I have several projects on my needles that I am excited to jump back into, or a project I’ve been dying to cast-on. That is exactly what happened when I finished my Summer Sorrel and jumped right into a baby gift for some dear friends. I was so into that baby onesie that I knit it in 3 days. I swear that it is the cutest baby knit I have ever done. Anyway, now I am left without a project that I’m excited about. Which brings me to the topic of today’s blog post, yarn, but more specifically the prices around yarn and yarn shaming.
Lately I have noticed a trend with some famous knit designers talking about yarn shaming (yes that is a thing in the knitting world). Meaning there is vast scale of different types of yarns and the prices that come along with them. For example a Lion Brand yarn that can be found at Joann Fabric for about $4 is looked down upon as “bad, cheap” yarn, but a fancy designer yarn found at a local yarn shop or online for $27 is considered “good nice” yarn. Both yarns produce amazing hand knits and the reality is many knitters can’t afford the “fancy” hand dyed yarns. I see all these amazing patterns on Ravely and think wow that is so beautiful, I want to make that. Then I look at the suggested yarn and go “oh that yarn is so expensive”. Now I will say I am extremely fortunate to have a well-paying job and can often afford the designer expensive yarns. I think that is pretty evident by my crazy yarn stash, but I am fully aware a lot of knitters can’t afford these yarns.
There is a new trend in knitwear lately of using this marled self-striping gradient type yarn. It is absolutely beautiful yarn that I often admire online. There is one popular dyer that is used in many of the recent patterns that I have been admiring, truly their work is amazing, so it doesn’t surprise me that their yarn is used so often. A single skein of their yarn is over $30, and now I understand they are a small business of just a few people and how they dye and spin their yarn is very time consuming and the materials are expensive which is why the prices are so high, but I can’t justify spending that kind of money on a single skein of yarn no matter how beautiful it may be. Most projects require several skeins of their yarn making projects hundreds of dollars, which isn’t affordable for a lot of people. I have started to see lists of alternative yarns being provided with the pattern which is super helpful. A lot of less expensive brands make similar type yarns, but they aren’t talked about. I’m not sure why that is the case, maybe because they are factory made, they are seen as less than, I’m not really sure.
This is something that has been on my mind a lot lately, so I felt like blogging about it. After much self-reflection I realized that I have a prejudice against cheaper yarns, thinking they are not worthy. Which is something I am not proud of, but something that is important for me to realize and hopefully change. In my recent online research in trying to find alternative yarns for some of these patterns that use these expensive fancy marled yarns I haven’t been able to pull the trigger and buy them. I couldn’t figure out what was holding me back until just last night. It isn’t that I didn’t want to spend the money, but that because the yarn wasn’t name brand it wasn’t “worthy” in my eyes. Now that is just ridiculous, just because a yarn isn’t hand dyed or locally sourced doesn’t make it any less special. I plan on buying some of this yarn (sorry stash you are about to get even bigger) and I know whatever I knit with it will turn out just as beautiful as if I had knit it with the name brand designer yarn.
