Confessions of a Fiber Snob

I wasn’t always this way. I used to shop yarn by price and weight. “A 4oz skein should cost about $3.00”. I crocheted happily along for years like this, completely unaware that there were choices. When I did discover other fibers I hastily dismissed them as ridiculously overpriced. When you need 8 or more for a sweater, who can afford $8.00 a ball?

So I made scarves, hats, sweaters, gift for everyone I knew. All along I was thinking that I was making heirlooms. I didn’t realize that for $3.00 per 4oz skein, I was getting 100% acrylic. I just wanted washable and soft. Wool was itchy and had to be dry cleaned which is also expensive. This was in the 70’s. Acrylic then had a tendency to pill and not hold its shape or to be very stiff regardless of how big your needles were.

Sometime in the late 80’s/early 90’s, when our budget had a little more room in it, I tried some “expensive” fiber. My mother had a small yarn shop at the time, so I could also make samples which gave me even more opportunities to try different fibers.

Wool was having a renaissance. New ways of processing made the finished item less itchy. Various breeds of sheep were being rediscovered for their long staple length. Elizabeth Zimmermann extolled the virtues of wool in all her books and videos. And if Elizabeth said to use wool, we did.

From there I ventured into Angora from rabbits and goats. I tried cashmere. Oh the luxury. I still can’t afford cashmere. Silk and cotton were new options for me. New fibers were being introduced at a crazy rate, like bamboo, soy, and corn. Somewhere in there I found Alpaca. Oh is that stuff yummy. A market was created and the people of Peru had more orders than they knew what to do with. And farmers began raising alpacas here. How about Yak, Llama, Opossum, or Buffalo? Really!

I had become a Fiber snob. I turned my nose up at the chain-store acrylics and even the wool blends from places like this. Occasionally I would purchase a ball of novelty yarn that was glitzy with viscose and nylon. These were very expensive. $15 for 50 yards!!

Now none of these fine yarns are machine washable/dryable, unless it’s commercially processed to be and is thus called superwash. So even though I am using these incredible fibers that breathe and are so soft that any baby can wear them, they still require special care. How many newborns get to spit-up on cashmere?

Recently, I had a custom order for some baby hats from a photographer in Canada. She didn’t really care what they were made out of. So I went digging in my stash. Mom had leftovers from Grandma. Dear God, Lion Brand’s Pound of Love? Yes, 1 pound of acrylic in 1 skein. I think they cost about $5.00 at Walmart. I shuddered. But I dug in and started making baby hats.

Soon I realized that this was actually a very nice product. It was soft, washable, workable, and seemed to hold its shape. It appeared that it would resist pilling very well. I talked to Mom about this and she pointed out how many well worn and dearly loved items Grandma had made with this yarn. Many hats and mittens had been handed down through entire families of 5+ kids. Grandma was on a fixed income. How many people out there would miss out on the joys of knitting and crocheting if it wasn’t affordable and durable?

My own Granddaughter, age 4, saw me working on these hats. Of course she spotted the bubblegum pink and immediately placed her order for hat, mittens and socks. It was her last words that brought the point home. She said, “GiGi, not itchy”. I had made her a beautiful set last year with a wool and silk blend that I had spun myself. She would never wear them.

Luxury fibers have their place and are to be appreciated for their qualities. But don’t let the allure of the fiber craze cloud your vision and make you a yarn snob. There is a place for acrylics and they have come a long way since the 70’s.