A comment in a form on Ravelry.com got me thinking. The thread was about yarn bargains, and one person said that whenever she's bought bargain-basement yarn she ends up regretting it.
I write this as someone with definite yarn-snob tendencies.
But one thing that always appealed to me about knitting is the idea of making something wonderful and valuable out of something relatively inexpensive. There's a kind of magic in taking some ordinary yarn and a couple of sticks and creating a wonderful handmade sweater or pair of socks. Part of the joy is the act of transformation.
Don't get me wrong: I'm a sucker for expensive sock yarn. But I was dismayed when I began knitting to see how easy it was to spend $100 on the materials to make a sweater.
My favorite sweater I ever knit is Alice Starmore's Faroe. Now, I think I would love this sweater no matter what yarn I had knit it in. I had a thing for this sweater from the moment I saw the design in Fishermen's Sweaters. But I confess there's a special frisson in knowing that I made it out of Paton's Classic Merino that I got on sale, and the whole thing cost me between $30 and $40.
The idea is: it's an heirloom because I made it into one, not just because I made it out of gorgeous yarn.
The yarn for my sock-pal socks was bought at the same sale, very inexpensively. Same alchemy. I hope.
1 comments:
How beautiful! I couldn't agree with you more about yarn. I have fallen for expensive yarns more than once, but I am learning that you can find great yarn at sane prices and that it's the knitting that makes or breaks a piece. That said, I would never use acrylic. :)
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