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Tuesday, October 10, 2017

The Price of Quality

I saw this to-die-for knitted shawl pattern and there were yarn kits being sold to create the shawl. I absolutely fell in love with the version with all the pinks in it. I love all the bright colors, but I love fuchsia extra hard.

But the yarn to make this awesome shawl with 3 shades of pink family, one gold, and one purple was an expensive brand of yarn. Expensive for this newbie, at least. I'd been buying much less expensive yarns and looking at some of them as too expensive. This really gave me pause. I'd be spending more than $100 for yarn to make a shawl that I might mess up more than once. It incorporated some new techniques for me. But the more I saw the beautiful pinks, the more I wanted it.

I splurged.

As I'm knitting my shawl, I've learned something interesting. The more expensive yarn holds up much, much better to having rows ripped out and redone even if I have to do it more than once. No fuzzing up, no fiber separation. In fact, I'd be challenged to find the places where I messed up and had to try a second or third time because the yarn looks as good as the sections I got right the first time.

This is both good news and bad news. The good news, my yarn is looking good and therefor my shawl is looking good too. The bad news? Now I want to use expensive yarn all the time. Gah! I never realized it would make such a huge difference, but it does.





This is an early snapshot of my shawl. I'll share a picture of the finished piece when I'm done.