Six Ways to Sunday

I feel like I need a list here, so things might be random and jumbled, but there are lots of pictures, so you should all feel bribed to keep reading.

• I washed my Wensleydale sock yarn today and it stayed fingering. Probably about 300 yards, or so.
  

  From Stitches 2009 Fiber

• I flayed out a new hank of fiber, one of the Lisa Souza 50% merino + 50% silk. I was hugely surprised by the blinding whiteness in the core throughout. The Lisa Souza Wensleydale had been one of the better dye jobs I have seen recently (zero whiteness), but even the other merino+silk (which was dated from last September) has a pretty solid white core. I find it surprisingly attractive, which is odd since I normally despise white and pastels (except in undyed fiber), but I sent Lisa Souza an email (it included both my satisfaction with the Wensleydale and well-wishes since she’s been very public about her personal issues in addition to the caution about the merino+silk fiber.)
  

  From Stitches 2009 Fiber

• I roped myself into participating more with the fiber club just because it makes me crazy to see it floundering.
• I worked on one sock for an hour today, but feel like I am getting no where…. ribbing is stupid. It takes forever, it looks bad as a texture (in my opinion), and it is physically demanding.
• And I have pictures of the February fiber club yarn.
  

  From Fiber Club

• Finally, I am nearly ready to shelve all the sock projects and just knit something fun. Any suggestions?

“Did you ever stop to think, and forget to start again?” ~Winnie the Pooh

The spinning is in progress, but I lost that rhythm from the first day that let me finish a whole bobbin in one sitting. I want that yarn.. waaaaant. It is for me. I knew in advance it was for me. I bought the fiber for me and I knew when I saw it that it was going to be special. I did not spin it when I first got it because I knew my skills were not up to snuff. I bought the fiber while visions of knitted sugarplums in my head, last February. 

I have a special knitting project in process. I want it to be a surprise, so I cannot talk about it here, but I am all excited. It is such an interesting idea! 

I finally decided not to buy any Blue Moon Fiber Arts yarn, mostly based on the comments and emails I received indicating poor experiences. The yarn is astronomical considering it is just superwash merino. 

Crown Mountain Farms is having a 2 day sale, 25% off their self-branded colorways in BFL and superwash merino and corriedale pencil. 

I still think online stores would do better with free shipping with minimum order deals. The shipping costs and need to create an account put me off ordering from BMFA. It would have kept me from ordering from CMF had SeedlessGrape not vouched for them. I probably am not the only one who really hates unknown shipping costs. The sale is nice, but I know shipping is a tax-deductible business expense, and discountable if you have an online account with USPS— so why are the full retail shipping charges being passed along? 

It is probably like how yarn stores are always zero-inventory boutique shops with fancy windows and no parking instead of a big warehouse where you can actually buy a men’s XXXL sweater’s worth of yarn off the shelf.  I would definitely be willing to drive an hour from here to shop for yarn if there was some hope that the store would bother to have any. I keep thinking there should be a way to get better than MSRP+ pricing in person in California. Maybe if there was a big store in one of the outlet malls? Personally I would like to see it in Hercules or Rodeo (far enough that parking is ample, at the intersection of I80 and Hwy 4) because then I could go for Thai food at my favorite Thai place which I feel guilty driving all that way just to have lunch and come back.

buying fiber: delusion v. reality

I ordered 3 pounds of BFL from Crown Mountain Farms because they were having a sale, 20% off all their new products, through 3/31. I was relatively certain that 20% would more than cover the hidden shipping costs. The CMF site says they will only charge you what the shipping actually costs, but I am somewhat cynical and untrusting. They require you to give your shipping address and sign up for an account before you can see the total price of your order. Obviously it was going to take something special for me to trust them.

Universally positive endorsements, thumb-width BFL roving in interesting intense colors, and a sale… I was really pleasantly surprised by my shopping experience. I received a corrected sale invoice within the hour. I was told there would be a “delay” in shipping my order and it still arrived faster than any fiber has ever before. And I was sent a tracking number. When my box arrived, the paper invoice was not corrected for the sale prices, so I emailed to confirm the charges and even this got a prompt reply and positive resolution.

My caveats for people ordering from CMF is that the colors are much more intense than they appeared. I am, overall, extremely pleased with what I ordered. I like it better than what the pictures indicated I was getting. But none of it looks like how I expected. I am hoping I can photograph my monitor and illustrate the difference. But for now, turn the brightness on your monitor way up.

Spunky Eclectic has announced price increases for fiber club. I expect all fiber clubs will increase in price since the post office is raising prices again. I will not be subscribing to fiber clubs after this. I did it to force myself to try new things and it has done its job, but in four months, there has never been a fiber I would have willingly chosen. For a while I thought, perhaps, it was because my spinning abilities were not up to par, but I believe it is more that I do not share mass-market tastes. I looked at other people’s fiber club results, both for Spunky Club and for HelloYarn Club and for others, and the smaller clubs have better selections, but the prices are ridiculous. If I am ordering, I would never order just one thing per shipment. So the shipping costs are disproportionately high. I had never subscribed to a yarn of the month club, so I think I bought into the mythology that it was like getting a present and belonging to an elite group at the same time. It is a false mythology because there is no sense of “belonging” and I am paying for the “gift”. It is not fair to blame others for one’s own delusions, but I remain disappointed by the reality.

Administrivia: Hmm. You cannot see this, but wordpress.com changed their user-level back end. What is most strange about this is that it is forced width narrow. Most people have high resolution monitors now, right? I tend to be somewhat behind the curve on technology purchases and my monitor is 1280×1024. I really resent it when things are set to a specific width when there is zero need to do so.

There will be a photo post upcoming.

buying fiber for spinning

I have been spinning. But have nothing really to show for it yet. Holidays and long weekends make it difficult to focus on more solitary pursuits.

I have one bobbin of superwash merino from Sakina Needles spun up. It spins and drafts just like the previous superwash merino from Spunky Eclectic. However the colors are less intense and the roving has lots of white patches. There were more white patches than were shown in the braid even. After spinning, I would say that the dye job on this roving is unsatisfactory because the color did not penetrate well and there is a consistent core of white throughout. With that much hidden white when the braid is undone, it looks like the buyer is being deceived by packaging. Caveat emptor. Admittedly, I have only unbraided two of the rovings. It is possible that both of those were abnormal. Perhaps I will unbraid the third and check. [ETA. The third one is actually worse.] It is also possible that other types of fiber from Sakina Needles are more intensely colored with fewer undyed swaths, since all my purchases of that brand have been superwash merino.

I realize it is impolite to negatively comment on businesses, but I have positively reviewed places that deserved it and refuse to stay silent and imply a recommendation by saying I have purchased something when I was unhappy.

I do not plan to return these, and I was very satisfied with the service from Loopy Ewe, but will not be buying Sakina Needles products in future. Hopefully the Tempted brand roving (from that same Loopy Ewe order) is better. [ETA. I wrote and complained because all the SN rovings were poor quality. Loopy Ewe was polite and grateful for the information. And they said they are looking for dyers who could provide a steady source of rovings. If you know someone good and responsible, pass on the referral please.]

Last night I placed another order with Spunky Eclectic. The product has been very satisfactory, but placing the orders is hard. I would not buy without knowing the owner because it is so much work to fight the system. I did email the owner with several suggestions and concerns, so I am not talking out of school entirely. Very very nice hand-dyed roving, but there is no space to specify which custom color you want when placing the order (I have sent email both times.) and most of the colorway thumbnails cannot be clicked for a larger view. [ETA. Once the order is in progress though, there are no problems. I got email back refining my custom color choices within the same day, even though there is a huge warning plastered all over the site saying everything is gone for the show.]

If we could combine the Loopy Ewe online store with the Spunky Eclectic products…..

I am going to be at Stitches West on Friday. I hope to find new and fabulous things there.

I am considering buying from Susan’s Spinning Bunny next. I was all set to place an order when the price went up 50% and it was on an unknown-to-me fiber, so I was a lot less enthusiastic afterward. I like that I can get a discount if I buy a pound of hand-dye in the same colorway.

I have looked at a number of places, but most of them do not specify shipping charges. Some of them say your order will be amended after they have figured the shipping charges. But all of them have cancellation fees. So you pick out what you want, give them your credit card information, then they slap you with a shipping fee, but if you protest, you forfeit the cost of your order anyway. I am not doing business with anyone like that. If I give them my zip code and they know the weight and approximate bulk of my purchase, they can figure shipping costs exactly. If they want to add in a handling fee of a couple bucks, fine, but I need to know the final costs before I will click OK if there is going to be a potential $100 penalty for changing my mind.

Is there anywhere selling pencil roving that is not corriedale, but is a reasonable price? There are days when I want to spin but not have to work at it.