KniCroBlo Week, Day One: A Tale of Two Yarns

I think a more accurate title for this post would be A Tale of One Yarn in Two Colors. In August of last year I was looking for a fairly inexpensive yarn to do the Buttercream Jacket from Interweave Knits Summer 2010 Issue. Per my normal way of doing things I researched all my options and decided instead of going to my local yarn shop, that I go to Joann's Fabrics to see if they had anything that was going to fit the bill. Remembering "cheap" and "lots of yardage" were my key words.

So armed with my 40% off coupon and a vague notion of a color I hit the store. I found a couple different options but only Lions Brand Fisherman's Wool meet the criteria. So after going through the 4 or 5 different colors they carried I settled on Heather Brown.

When I got the stuff home, I wound it into center pull cakes. And in winding it to those cakes I realized that this stuff was stiff and scratchy. But I didn't give up on it. I faithfully knitted those enormous cakes into my Buttercream Jacket (more like Coffee with Cream due to the color).

And I loved my Buttercream Jacket...except that it was scratchy. I mean itchy. I mean so itchy that I scratched until I broke blood vessels under my skin. Sooo not good but I wore that jacket anyway. It took months before it broke in enough that I didn't look like I had fleas every time I wore it. Once it broke in I could wear it with a short sleeve shirt and not itch...much.

So in February of this year, I was, once again, looking for some yarn that could get my hands on quickly. This time I was looking for something to make Roheline from Twist Collective Winter 2010. Criteria was the same as before, cheap and plenty of yardage. Again a trip to Joanns was in order. I attempted to avoid the Fisherman's Wool like the plague but I kept being drawn back to it for the Oatmeal colorway. Finally I picked up a skein of the stuff and discovered that unlike the Heather Brown, the Oatmeal was soft (not super soft but decent) and it didn't seem like it would be itchy like the Heather Brown was either. Generally once I have a bad experience with a yarn or find that I just don't like it, I don't give it a second chance. But coming from a place of yes (also a place of being cheap), I decided to give it a second chance.

But this time, I ended up with a very comfortable and easy to wear sweater that I really like. The wool is beautiful and warm. It's only itchy within reason, I mean it is wool after all.