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This post is about yarn. I have too much yarn. That's not really surprising, I think most of the knitters have a too big yarn stash. Mine doesn't even have a one specific place were everything is. Not all of it even is in my flat. Some of it, well most of it still is at my parents. Why? Mostly because I used to live across the country and move twice a year, there for winter and back for the summer. Now at least I'm at the same city as my yarns.
So now that we have established that I have acknowledged that I own too much yarn I will talk about my yarn. I'm not really trying to decrease my yarn stash, but I'm buying new yarn mostly only if I need it. It's going quite well. My yarn stash is mostly Novita's yarn. Bits and pieces acquired through out years. I also have quite a bit of DROPS yarns as well. Why those two brands? Two reason really. Those are the yarn brands sold in my home town and they are relatively cheap. We do have a yarn store, but I can't never really find anything I want from there. Mostly it's just in my opinion the store's lack of fingering weight yarns meant for lace shawls.
DROPS yarns are often on sale and a store at home town has a wide selection of colours and different yarn types and it's not only selling typical Novita's yarns. I mostly buy my yarns from there as it is cheaper in there than in supermarkets and it's a lot less hassle that buying yarn online. I get to feel the yarn, see if it feels right. That's important, the feeling of the yarn, not even necessarily the physical feeling of the yarn, but how I feel about it and how it makes me feel.
The colour is of course important, but mostly I look fiber content in yarn. The last time I bought 100% acrylic was in 2011 in Nottingham England. Why? Because I really needed to knit and the yarn selection at John Lewis wasn't something my wallet agreed and the proper yarn stores were a bit further away. I was also a bit too shy to take a bus ride to yarn store, small talk with the owner with my then no-so-great English and buy actually something I wanted. I didn't really even know what I was knitting, but during those days I kept buying that cheap acrylic yarn I was already making my flatmates wonder why I was knitting and even what I was actually doing. So I was the weird Finnish knitter who knitted cowls for many of them during those months. Why also the acrylic? Daily I was around "proper" yarn, knitting machines and fibers at the university, I didn't really need yarn with great fiber quality, I needed yarn to create something.
So there hardly is any "plastic" yarn in my stash, but the quality isn't great either. I'm still a student and thinking about buying yarn with a high price tag isn't something I feel comfortable doing right now. It's not a secret to people close to me that I dislike most of Novita's yarn I have noticed the change of yarn quality in the past 15 years. Yeah, I've also learn a lot about fibers and yarns during that time, but I still have yarn from those days and it really has a different feeling to it, physical feeling.
I design patterns meant for yarns that are easily purchased in Finland and that at least to me means those two yarn companies.
The most expensive yarn I've bought? I bought it from Brighton on the summer of 2015. (The picture doesn't do justice to the beautiful colour of the yarn). I knew it as the yarn which Veera Välimäki used in some her designs and I wanted it. Why I bought it from Brighton where the yarn company is based? I worked at Brighton during summers and it was easier to go to a yarn store there at the north lanes and buy a skein than order it online in Finland.
It's the most beautiful skein I bought and to me buying that yarn was one of the highlights if that years Brighton's trip. It was a super warm day and I had spent the whole day first with activity and then teaching and I was super exhausted, but I decided to walk to the small store at the north lanes even if I would be leaving the city in rush to get back to dinner. YAK was so cute store and the person working there was really nice to me, even thought for some reason I was really nervous about buying that skein. Suddenly I wasn't as fluent in English as I'm meant to be, but I bought the skein and talked a bit about a Finnish designer who used that yarn in her works and basically had a lovely chat.
No, I haven't used that yarn yet. Will I ever? When I'll find the perfect pattern for it. It's still in the same paper bag I got from the store and held really tightly at the rush hour bus ride. That yarn is special to me. It presents both of the summers at Brighton, those warm days when you enjoy your work even if it's exhausting and you know you are getting to experience new things and even get salary out of it.
So now that we have established that I have acknowledged that I own too much yarn I will talk about my yarn. I'm not really trying to decrease my yarn stash, but I'm buying new yarn mostly only if I need it. It's going quite well. My yarn stash is mostly Novita's yarn. Bits and pieces acquired through out years. I also have quite a bit of DROPS yarns as well. Why those two brands? Two reason really. Those are the yarn brands sold in my home town and they are relatively cheap. We do have a yarn store, but I can't never really find anything I want from there. Mostly it's just in my opinion the store's lack of fingering weight yarns meant for lace shawls.
DROPS yarns are often on sale and a store at home town has a wide selection of colours and different yarn types and it's not only selling typical Novita's yarns. I mostly buy my yarns from there as it is cheaper in there than in supermarkets and it's a lot less hassle that buying yarn online. I get to feel the yarn, see if it feels right. That's important, the feeling of the yarn, not even necessarily the physical feeling of the yarn, but how I feel about it and how it makes me feel.
The colour is of course important, but mostly I look fiber content in yarn. The last time I bought 100% acrylic was in 2011 in Nottingham England. Why? Because I really needed to knit and the yarn selection at John Lewis wasn't something my wallet agreed and the proper yarn stores were a bit further away. I was also a bit too shy to take a bus ride to yarn store, small talk with the owner with my then no-so-great English and buy actually something I wanted. I didn't really even know what I was knitting, but during those days I kept buying that cheap acrylic yarn I was already making my flatmates wonder why I was knitting and even what I was actually doing. So I was the weird Finnish knitter who knitted cowls for many of them during those months. Why also the acrylic? Daily I was around "proper" yarn, knitting machines and fibers at the university, I didn't really need yarn with great fiber quality, I needed yarn to create something.
So there hardly is any "plastic" yarn in my stash, but the quality isn't great either. I'm still a student and thinking about buying yarn with a high price tag isn't something I feel comfortable doing right now. It's not a secret to people close to me that I dislike most of Novita's yarn I have noticed the change of yarn quality in the past 15 years. Yeah, I've also learn a lot about fibers and yarns during that time, but I still have yarn from those days and it really has a different feeling to it, physical feeling.I design patterns meant for yarns that are easily purchased in Finland and that at least to me means those two yarn companies.
The most expensive yarn I've bought? I bought it from Brighton on the summer of 2015. (The picture doesn't do justice to the beautiful colour of the yarn). I knew it as the yarn which Veera Välimäki used in some her designs and I wanted it. Why I bought it from Brighton where the yarn company is based? I worked at Brighton during summers and it was easier to go to a yarn store there at the north lanes and buy a skein than order it online in Finland.
It's the most beautiful skein I bought and to me buying that yarn was one of the highlights if that years Brighton's trip. It was a super warm day and I had spent the whole day first with activity and then teaching and I was super exhausted, but I decided to walk to the small store at the north lanes even if I would be leaving the city in rush to get back to dinner. YAK was so cute store and the person working there was really nice to me, even thought for some reason I was really nervous about buying that skein. Suddenly I wasn't as fluent in English as I'm meant to be, but I bought the skein and talked a bit about a Finnish designer who used that yarn in her works and basically had a lovely chat.
No, I haven't used that yarn yet. Will I ever? When I'll find the perfect pattern for it. It's still in the same paper bag I got from the store and held really tightly at the rush hour bus ride. That yarn is special to me. It presents both of the summers at Brighton, those warm days when you enjoy your work even if it's exhausting and you know you are getting to experience new things and even get salary out of it.
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