Yarn Buying Frustration

This is how I know I’m going to do better in 2020 about not buying yarn. Lately, buying yarn has become frustrating. The fun has kinda dwindled.

I want to make a Grey Fox sweater. I knew I wanted to use a dark gray for the main part of the sweater so before buying yarn in the Black Friday sales, I searched through the stash and found this.

Mostly the sweater is one color but with just a tiny bit (like 80 yards) of each of the other colors. These colors work and I’m drawn to them, even though it’s kind of a weird combination, but then I thought . . this is a perfect project for Addie’s school colors. Also, this is Madelinetosh Longrider DK and I’m not yet to the point where I can use the yarns I can no longer get without feeling like . . if I use this yarn, I’ll never have it again. I know .. I’m not ready to say I’ll never buy yarn again til I can get past that hurdle.

I decided to order Malabrigo Dos Tierras, another DK weight yarn and I would buy it during the Black Friday sale. Since I’m not buying much yarn, ok . . no yarn after Black Friday, I find that I’m much more selective with what I buy. Before, I would have just bought yarn and if it didn’t work, I’d order something else and stash what I just bought. Those days are over!

I decided on the above combo. By far, the sweater is mostly dark gray. Left to right – Pearl Ten, Cereza and Polar Moon.

That was the first order I placed but later when I went back to see the yarns I’d ordered, I had not actually ordered the Cereza (red). I looked at it and it was in my car so either I deleted it or someone else bought it before I was able to get it. I went back to place another order for the Cereza and it was all gone. Darn it! So I went to another place having a sale and ordered it from there and had to pay shipping because my free shipping ends the end of the year at ESK and I doubt they get more Malabrigo yarn in before the end of the year so I wanted to place my order, get it done and have the yarn for the project all together.

Then, this morning, right off the bat, I had an email from ESK that the 8 skeins of Pearl Ten were not well matched. That happens with hand dyed type yarns, and Malabrigo is famous for it. I’m thankful ESK pays so much attention and doesn’t send out mismatched skeins, but most good yarn shops do that.

At first, I said just cancel the order because I needed both the Pearl Ten and Polar Moon for the one project. I went searching for those colors at other yarn shops that might be still having a sale and no one who was having a sale had enough Pearl Ten in stock. I decided black would work so I wrote ESK back and asked if they could sub the black for the Pearl Ten.

That works too. Maybe I like it better! Maybe in the end I’ll end up using the gray, green, peach combination I found.

I really think I’m done shopping for yarn.