9/9/07

$60 Felt Piece-O-Junk

Yesterday was the first day that I have really been shopping since Fall stuff has been out. I wandered around store after store annoying my non-knitting friend with, "$48!! I could knit that! Those are just *insert pattern* with a 2 X 2 rib at the bottom."

One particularly irritating moment for my friend was when I saw a sweater on sale for $60 dollars that was hand knit. It was knit with really chunky yarn, would only take about 5 hours to knit due to the very holey pattern, and seemed to be knit out of some alpaca blend. Ok, so alpaca yarn is super expensive anywhere I have seen it and $60 doesn't seem to steep. My problem? There were no washing instructions anywhere on the sweater. It had about five tags and not one of them said what kind of yarn was used or instructions for care of the garment. Now you know someone bought that sweater, took it home, then... threw it in the washing machine! $60 isn't expensive for an alpaca hand knit but I do think it is a little pricey for a felted doll sweater. If I had the time or energy yesterday I could have asked the salesperson about the information that was left off the tags. Who knows, maybe when you buy the sweater they give you a little pamphlet entitled, "how to care for your hand knits." I wonder if after you get home and felt your beautiful sweater, does the store give you a refund?

In knitting news...I have not been posting lately because I have been knitting. I have FO's to post about and I promise I will try to post them today or tommorrow... I just had to share my story.

3 comments:

Amanda said...

I would be so, so angry if I spent a bunch of money on a sweater, only to felt it (oh wait, I've done that...oops). I have the same problem with purchasing knitwear now, too -- unless it's really intricate and knit at a really fine gauge (or a really, really good deal!), I have trouble justifying things that I can make on my own.

Looking forward to seeing your FOs!

Charlene said...

Glad to see your back :)....All I have to say is been there done that. I'm in the same boat trying to get projects done before being tempted by more yarn. I think the next thing I'd like to get started is joining up with one of these sock clubs. I'm seeing some pretty sock patterns out there, but their all coming from these online stores. What's your next project?

Spinning Ninny said...

that drives me nuts. i think that probably what drove me to knit beyond scarves and hats.