On Raising Yarn Snobs...

I still remember the day I learned to knit. My cousin and I went to Wal-mart and I picked up random plastic needles and Red Heart Supersaver in a light pink. All for under $5. I thought, "Great! I'm going to have this new cheap hobby and I'm going to make all my own scarves and hats, it'll be awesome."

Fast-forward 3 years and I'm going through withdrawals because I've sworn off buying yarn for until December. So I sit online and drool over the malabrigo and lorna's laces that I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to buy but really can't because I live on a poor student budget. So I sigh and go back to the Lion Brand page to look at the more realistic purchases I can make in 7 very, very, very long months.

Ok, flip-side. I taught a couple of my new-found friends in London to knit back in March. The Wal-mart equivalent (ASDA) doesn't have a craft section so we went to the only other place we knew, John Lewis department store's haberdashery section. Display after display after display of jaeger, debbie bliss, rowan...... *drool* Not exactly your typical beginner's yarns. So, my friends squish hundreds of skeins in their hands and they eventually all pick out debbie bliss cashmerino. In over 3 years of knitting and living for yarn I STILL have never bought debbie bliss cashmerino! Knitpicks is about as luxury as I go. So they each get 3 balls of yarn for their first scarf at a cool $25.

Next yarn excursion, we actually found a big box type craft store with yarn, Hobbycraft. No rowan or jaeger to be found here, just lots of acrylics, novelty yarns and a couple of wool blends. What happens? My friends refuse to buy anything based on the fact that it's not NEARLY as nice as what they started with. Spoiled.

The next place we shopped for yarn together was at the store in Florence (see previous post) where we totally hit the jackpot. They were buying angora, alpaca, wool tweeds, cashmere blends and all for a fraction of the cost in the real world.

We come back to London and they start jonesing for more yarn (yes, I've turned them into full blown addicts and I am their dealer.) But now they want cheap yarn, they don't want to pay $25 for a scarf anymore. So I suggest we go back to Hobbycraft; I was met with looks of horror. So we trekked over to a proper yarn store, Loop. Beautiful little yarn store packed full of gorgeous, gorgeous, expensive yarns. Since I'm on my yarn diet I woefully sat on a chair and watched them go crazy. Oh and boy was it interesting. They wanted cashmere, they wanted the softest most luxe yarns in the world and wouldn't settle for anything less. Mind you, they have just finished their first scarves - complete with wavy edges and many many holes. They each walked out with 5 balls of Lana Grossa.

It's the start of a whole new yarn snob generation. I'm jealous.