There is a myth that knitting and crocheting is inexpensive. I suppose that probably goes back to when people sewed their own clothing because it was cheaper than buying it in a store. But in these when everything is mass produced in china, the price of clothing has gone down dramatically. So when clothes were more expensive, making it yourself was probably cheaper – accent on the “er”.So these days when you can buy a sweater in walmart for $12, who expects that making it yourself will cost $80 just for the yarn? I don’t even blame this on Stitch N Bitch and the whole trendyification of knitting. In fact I think that that movement has made quality knitting products available for much lower prices via outlets like elann.com and knitpicks.

So anyway the route of this is that I want to make a baby blanket for my friend. The pattern calls for Rowan Wool Cotton (50% cotton/50% merino). It’s $10 for a 50g ball and I need 15. That’s $150 just for yarn! Now that’s ridiculous. So I did some research and found I could probably substitute Brown Sheel Cotton Fleece (80% pima cotton/20% merino). Now that is $8 for a 100g skein, so I’d only need 8. That’s $64, which is more reasonable but still expensive. Finally I found Elann.com Sonata which is 100% cotton and $2 for a 50 g skein = $30.

Now one of my issues is that I love the color combo they use in the pattern, and I haven’t found any other company that has similar colors. I had thought about buying natural yarn and dyeing it, but that wool/cotton blend worries me. Plus Elann doesn’t have color cards, although I can get some “snips” by sending them a SASE.

And to add on to my rant, online yarn stores need to make color cards available with more reasonable shipping. Everyplace I’ve looked wants to charge me $5 to send a $4 color card. I think my plan is going to be to head over to Yarnware and see what colors of Cotton Fleece they carry.