There is Cheap Yarn, and there is Crap Yarn...

And for those of us who are not 'Yarn Snobs', we must learn to differentiate between the two, for often Cheap Yarn does not equal Crap Yarn, and usually Crap Yarn is a variety of Cheap Yarn...

Take this yarn, for example: a Wool/Acrylic blend yarn-75% Acrylis, 25% Wool, "Wendy Chunky", made in England. Decent hand-feel...For knitting Dashing Mitts-(btw, did I tell you that the finished Dashings in STR "Shadow" were the second attempt...)-portion of "Wendy" Dashings shown below..bad idea!
So in this case, this yarn is Crap Yarn! Though it would maybe be good for a sturdy bag, though you really would not want to knit anything that would be cabled or tightly knit with this. But why am I saying this is "crap"? Well, if you can imagine knitting a pair of Dashings with dpns at a somewhat tighter gauge than recommended and getting this 'squeeking' sensation, that would be one reason. Now imagine coming to the cable portion of said mitts...you cleverly do your cable needle-less cabling, only this stuff is like iron and you need to really tug to make sure those stitches cross on over to the other side. Every stitch was an effort to knit. Seriously.

And now, I present you with some Cheap Yarn. Not the finest, but guess what? It is Red Heart (which people love to hate) and it is labeled 'craft' yarn! It is bulky, it is inexpensive, it is 100% acrylic! And the color is kinda cool for a kid. Especially a kid who has decided wool products that have previously been knit for him are 'too scratchy'. So guess what? I knit him a "smarf" (his term for a single fingerless mitt) and am now making him an Unoriginal Hat from this! It feels decent and has much more give than the Wendy Chunky-and this is even a thicker yarn! No crunchy noise coming from my knitting, either! Cheap Yarn?-yes. Crap Yarn?-NO!


And now, in addition to inspiration in seeing Carrie's Unoriginal Hat, I present to you my Unoriginal Hat (A YarnHarlot-Stephanie Pearl-McPhee- pattern):


I started this last night, finished this afternoon-2 sittings of a couple of hours, at most! 45 or less rows!

So sadly, despite being off from work sick (I got Lil' Emperor's cold!-we all did!), I have not touched my Secret of the Stole II! I completed the above hat (being sick is motivation to add to the head warmer pile) and instead spent my awake time (dare I admit this?!) playing Super Mario Galaxy with Lil' Emp on his Wii. Yes, LE's favorite state of being: too sick to go to school, but not too sick to play Wii! I really mostly was his 'assist' in capturing star bits and freezing enemies that he could then stomp. So when not playing Wii, I was too tired to knit or do much of anything else-amazing how these stupid games can tire you out so much, but they do!

So no blogging until now, and the only other thing to show since the last post?...

Does this look familiar?...


It's the replacement gift purse! So I started this last weekend and am now to the top. Another last-year's Christmas gift still in the works! It went very quickly and if I had worked on it instead of my had, it would certainly be done. But I didn't. And it's not. And that's just the way I get sometimes! OK, maybe tomorrow...and maybe I'll even finish the first Serendipity sock I started! I'll try to post the progress tomorrow!