Yarn Weights

I’m not sure why they bother classifying yarn by weights, since it seems so completely random it’s not even funny.  I’ve been using a lot of ombre/striped yarns and the variations in just one skein is pretty wild.  For example the Red Heart Unforgettable yarn is absolutely beautiful, but it’s classified as a 4.

I’d guess that maybe 1% of that skein was actually a “4”, it was more like a 2 and almost like working with a heavy thread.  It also felt like a roving yarn and tangled easily within itself.  I was lucky I didn’t have to frog any of it because I think it would have snared together horribly.

The Sweet Roll ombre was a little better, but probably 30% of it went down to a 2, then back up to 4, all over the project.

I ran into the same problem with my flower squares.  Both the red and the yellow/pink are both “4” weights.  But the red is visibly larger.  It’s rather frustrating.

Is it even worth it?

I was talking last night about the whole economics of making items for sale.  I had just finished a small pile of square using the Lion Brand “Rainforest” Tweed Stripes.  Each one doesn’t take very long at all, maybe 15 mins including sewing in the tails.  But then I compared the much bigger and complicated flower squares which take closer to an hour.

Excluding materials, if I got paid my normal working rate of around $27 an hour, nothing would ever be affordable.  But let’s say minimum wage around 8 dollars.  Finishing a cocoon sweater completely probably takes me 6 hours. 48 dollars just in labor.  The going price on Etsy is actually lower than that, around 40 dollars.  Then if you add in the yarn, you’d probably be making 4 dollars an hour.  The materials for a thick queen sized blanket is close to 100.  No one is going to pay the 500 that would price that item fairly.  Curious, isn’t it?

All that being said, this isn’t my day job.  I hook when training people at work, at the dentist waiting room, at the kids long sports events or watching tv.  It’s more like a hobby that might turn a slight bit of money. Not too bad.

Fancy Granny Squares

I can’t seem to make up my mind which project I want to finish to completion.  I decided to make my dad a red blanket based on just a huge granny square, very basic but I like how it looks.  Well I ran out of red so I started to use tan, then said nah I have to have red.  Bought some red, then when I was at my moms for something else, she gave me another big case of yarn with some red.  Figures.

Then I am still working on the wave blanket that I wanted to do in retro colors.  I should have known better, but I figured I would do it in tan, cinnamon, green, then a lighter cream before going back to the tan.  I had 2 big old containers of yarn and it looked like I had enough of each.  But oops, no.  The first tan was just TAN, the second tan was BRIGHT tan.   The soft cream color was Chino tan and I had no more of that. I started to put a Tawny White to replace the Chino tan but, it’s not going to work.  I’m going to have to see if the Buff Red Heart will be a decent replacement, otherwise it’s off to the store to match it.  I really like how it’s coming out when the current colors so, that top row will be ripped out.

Speaking of ripping, I had been framing these cute flower granny squares in an off-white color.  But after I did a bunch in pink (4 to be exact), I did 2 in red.  Well red stands out good on white-ish but the pink looked far too faded.  So I ripped all the white off and working on redoing them all in a jade green.  And naturally the red, even though the same “4” weight as the pink, came out bigger than the pink flowers.  Same hook and everything.  The pink was the retro yarn and the red was not.  I’m working off a coat pattern by Yarnutopic which I’m hoping works out, it’s based off granny squares but I can’t quite decide if I should work some plain squares in or not.