A Tale of Two Yarns

*** Parental Warning: This will not interest you, parents. We're talking about wool in this one. I'll put something up for you tomorrow. xxx ***
(Sorry about that. Otherwise I'll get a reproachful phonecall to the tune of, "Why can't you write about something apart from yarn and crocheting?") 

A bunch of ladies (maybe a couple of gents, too, but I suspect we're mostly women) on the Ravelry group The Blog Hub are taking part in a Knitting and Crochet Blog Week. I really wasn't going to take part because I can barely tie my own shoelaces at the moment, let alone get myself to blog daily for a week, but our Fearless Leader, Eskimimi, has organised it so well and so professionally that I thought I ought to get my bottom in gear and contribute. She has set us a writing task and we have to complete it daily. It reminds me a bit of the homework we got at school, but Eskimimi is nowhere near as frightening as Sr. Alphonsus and her flapping veil, though she does keep us in line: all of our contributions are neatly tagged and lined up in Google to read. Impressive, ne c'est pas?

So today our task is this:
Part of any fibre enthusiast’s hobby is an appreciation of yarn. Choose two yarns that you have either used, are in your stash or which you yearn after and capture what it is you love or loathe about them.

This is going to be a highly controversial post and I may be about to rock your world - brace yourself, crafters.

My first yarn is Red Heart Super Saver. Mostly I've chosen it out of contrariness. Everyone else is choosing Bamboo-Silk Unicorn's Hair or Handspun Mermaid Bumfluff - I felt sorry for this much-maligned American yarn. Entire pages of scathing comments are devoted to it on Ravelry, yet there's more of it in the stash database than practically every other yarn. While other devotees seem keen to hide their plebian tastes, I stand by my love of cheap acrylic yarn. I'm not going to knit jumpers from it or crochet bridal shawls, but I am going to make afghans and woolly hats ... objects that will probably be the only thing left standing after the apocalypse, along with cockroaches and Tupperware.

This, by the way, is my Shelley Stash. I haven't used it yet. I mostly just look at it and arrange the colours in a more pleasing fashion. Yum, yum.

What do I like about RHSS? It's robust and tough and a lot of people hate it (= support the underdog.) What I dislike about it is that you can only buy it in the US. Globalisation - where are you when we need you?


The second yarn I choose is sock yarn. No particular brand, I love it all. In fact, I haven't met a sock yarn yet that I didn't like, and I find more to like on a daily basis. I like the colours. I even find the outrageously disgusting colour combinations fascinating. The sad thing is that I have, up to now, knit the sum total of half a sock, accompanied by Mammy Gingerbread, aka Lightning Needles. In recent weeks, I've had the yearning to try it again - especially after reading about this charity, Socks for Japan. In my own head, I am a Crafting Philantrophist, churning out socks for the needy, lickety-split. In reality, I have to donate to the Red Cross because I don't want to add to the Japanese people's trauma by making them wear my hand-knitted socks.

But I digress.  
What do I like about sock yarn? It's colourful, often in delightfully unexpected ways. What I dislike about it is that it is often sinfully expensive. One little skein costs half an afghan. Well, not quite, but it's expensive enough to only be bought on special occasions, high holidays and as presents for other people. Fortunately, I have an opportunity to buy someone a gift, so I went shopping and bought a couple of skeins of a new yarn. Isn't this luvverly?