"I feel like a fool for buying this"

So this is the subject of this post, but this bland yellow cotton skein of yarn doesn't begin to convey what the problem is.

I recently went into Michaels during a yarn sale and began to grab handfuls of this stuff, all different colours, because it was on for $1.50. Small as they were, that's still a good price.

Bought them. Then they were crammed into a plastic bag and sat there for a week. Then last night, when I opened the bag - 

It was a "what the - ?" moment. There was this - stink. It seemed to be clinging to the bag, permeating it. I thought of those horrible scent cards in magazines, the kind that make my eyes immediately start burning.

Only this was far worse. It was Cat House No. 5, a French perfume you'd buy at the dollar store by the gallon, something you'd use to disinfect the cat box if you really hated your cat.

At first I didn't know what the hell was going on. I began to paw through the balls of yarn. The smell was getting stronger and stronger, until I found the yellow, and - 

I came pretty close to gagging. I noticed that on the label, there was a tiny little symbol that said "scents", printed on a nearly-illegible red circle. It would not be obvious to a consumer at all, and if you were in a hurry like I was, you'd just grab it as if it were any other skein of yarn. I'm sorry, but it doesn't occur to me to pick up and smell the yarn before I buy it. It's like checking it for fleas - just does not make sense.

Even as I write this, a phantom headache threatens. I can't describe it. The smell has taken up residence in the lining of my nostrils, as only very acrid and overwhelming scents do.  It's Aunt Dorothy's cheap perfume, applied layer by layer because she didn't bathe very much. It's that headspinningly stinky Febreze furniture deodorizer shoved up your nose with a shovel. It's one of those reeking pieces of cardboard you hang up in the car to hide the smell of Junior's last heave. It's  - 

One day on the bus, I sat next to a very Goth-looking woman who obviously worked in a meth lab. The chemicals coming off her literally burned their way into my sinuses, which had to heal over the next few days. This isn't quite that bad, but why can't I get rid of the smell?  I haven't touched the yarn in hours! The rest of it, the stuff that was in the bag along with the "scents", have caught the contagion and now reek almost as badly. They just absorbed it like a sponge. I threw them all in the clothes drier and they've been in there for an hour, but -  

I don't think so.

I may well have to return the whole lot. But the problem is, Michaels is obviously cramming this "scents" yarn in the same bins as the regular stuff. By now, it'll all be pretty much permeated. 

Scented yarn. OK.  I'll try to wrap my head around the concept! If you, say, knitted a sweater or even a scarf with this stuff, your body heat would fully release its gagging, wafting ponk. It would follow you around all day and set off everybody's allergies, not just your own. You would move in a cloud of stink that blares "cheap! Cheap! Cheap!" all day long. And I doubt if something this obnoxious could be washed out.

Maybe it's like pizza crust, constantly being reinvented: stuff it, put hot dogs in it, chop it up into rippable bits, dunk it in some sort of sauce that probably won't improve the experience. But for God's sake, don't just leave it alone! Keep "improving" the product with bizarre innovations that fall down in the execution.

This yarn is booby-trapped. I'm not the only one who has bought it without realizing just how evil it is. Maybe they should put steel bolts into the skeins that shoot through your hands, nailing you to your chair as if you're Christ on the cross. 

I know I am within my rights to return all the yarn, but what new stink might I find in the bins? There are three or four of these "scents", including - gag - lavender. The one I mistakenly bought is supposed to be some sort of migraine-inspiring vanilla, but if you added a little Chanel No. 5 to skunk spray, you'd just about have it.

I find it gratifying, having dug up the few reviews of this product that exist on the internet, the degree to which other customers are on the same page with me. I feel vindicated and a little less shitty about the whole thing. I hereby quote a few of them anonymously:

I just bought this yarn not knowing it was scented. I like the colour but the scent was giving me a headache! My fingers even smelt after. I had to wash my hands when I was done knitting. I really hope the smell comes out in the wash. I will not be purchasing anymore scented yarn. Frankly, I don't understand the purpose of adding perfume to yarn.

No,

I do not recommend this product.
smelly

Bought this in creme white not realizing it was scented cotton. It is cheap, not a nice scent and I put it in the trash.

No,

I do not recommend this product.
Nice color, not so nice scent.

Purple is my favorite color and one of the reasons I purchased this item. I like the soft lavender color but I do not like the scent.

To me the scent smells like cheap soap. Luckily it's not too overwhelming (although it is strong), so it's bearable even though I don't care for the scent.

Awful

I ordered 3 different yarns and they all smell exactly the same and nothing like the description for any of them. The scent is AWFUL. I don't even know how to describe it; it's just an annoying smell that is really strong and almost burns your nose and throat. I would not purchase this again, and unfortunately I have to finish my project so I don't have time to return it. I am just working a little at a time and taking breaks from the horrible smell.

Would recommend to a friend? No

smell horrible

Could not get by the smell. There is no words for it. Just no good. I thought that there would be much more little bundle of yarn. Just no good. Brought it back to the store. Waste of time and money

The skeins were a whole lot smaller than what I had purchased prior from another source. I thought they would be all the same size.

Top positive review

One person found this helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Not quite vanilla, but not bad.

I bought it for the color & it is a good cotton yarn. The scent is not unpleasant, but it's not exactly vanilla - it is more reminiscent of a laundry detergent scent.

Top critical review

One person found this helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars  I feel like a fool for ordering this

Well, I feel like a fool for ordering this. It is a teeny, tiny skein. I kept looking in the shipping box for the rest of it. And it does not smell like lavender. at all. It rather...stinks. There goes $9 wasted. I expected more from Bernat. A teeny, tiny smelly bundle. lol. Not my usual joy in opening a package of new yarn !

Smelled harsh and chemical-y. Had to return.

i ordered this yarn and recieved this color yarn but it was not as described it was bernat handicrafter not scented at all

It's ok, very skimpy .not much of a scent wouldn't buy this again....

NEXT DAY'S REFLECTIONS. Second verse, same as the first! I found yet another review that resonated with me. And how.

Does not smell like vanilla

This yarn does not smell like vanilla. It is VERY perfumey. Bought it for a child hat but it smells like grandma's perfume gone bad. Additionally some of my skeins were stained with what appears to be coffee.

No, I do not recommend this product.

Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!

The $52,000.00 blankie

·

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Red Heart Plush Baby Yarn-Blueberry
by Red Heart
Be the first to review this item

Price:
CDN  $5,272.03 FREE SHIPPING.

Only 3 left in stock.
Ships from and sold by Histore CA.
1 new from CDN $ 5,272.03
Red Heart NOM060580 Plush Baby Yarn, Blueberry
Weight 0.07 Kg
Price per each SKU# NOM060580

No kidding. This is how much Amazon.ca wants for a ball of blankie wool. Used to be $3.00 or $4.00, but then, like all the materials I love to work with, it has been discontinued and is rare as the dodo. I'd need about ten of them, I'd say.

But only a dodo would buy this. 

The art of juju

Just a little bit of something I had lying around the house. No, actually I made it. This is my very first functioning juju doll. Though it's hard to see, there are "instructions" wrapped around his waist which are very explicit.

This was an experimental model with its heart outside of its body. The face, however, is completely accurate. It needed accessorizing, so this is also my very first functioning noose. These are surprisingly easy to make. I can do it in my sleep now. Use hemp or sisal or jute twine for these, not yarn. They need a bit of stiffness.

I did not photograph my dolly, but ran it through the scanner, providing weird effects, made even weirder by using photoshop filters such as posterize, saturation, lightness, etc. And darkness.

Some of these came out quite abstract, but I promise you these are the same photos. This doesn't happen often and means the photos have certain properties that are hard to explain.

Invert. Looks almost like those black velvet paintings sold at gas stations in the 1980s.

The Nijinsky of juju dolls! Note his form as he leaps through the air. Almost weightless.

Closeups, so you can see the devil's handiwork.

Be nice to me. Okay?

"You had me at hello"

Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K7NGDA

Confession: I killed a panda (with scissors)

So we all know what pandas look like. Roly-poly, black-masked, adorable,  with their woolly black-and-white contrasted coat. I wouldn't get in a cage with one, but I can admire their cuddlyness from afar.

So Caitlin said to me not long ago:

Grandma.

Yes, Caitlin.

Could you knit me something?

Sure, what would you like?

Could you knit me a panda?

 

A panda? I had so many panda patterns I didn't know where to start. Most of them were plain lousy, or even frightening.

This poor guy looks as if he was run over by a truck.

But hel-lo-o-o-o-o-o:  what was this? Just about the cutest knitted panda pattern I've ever seen! And he looked easy to make. The pattern came from World of Knitted Toys by Kath Dalmeny,  a book I've used for several successful projects, such as many of the characters in my Ugly Duckling story  which I gave Erica and Lauren for their birthdays.

I showed her the pattern. "I want it! I want it!" Caitlin said, so I told her, alrighty then, I'll knit it for you.

And then.

Well, it got weird.

Then weirder.

This thing didn't look like a panda at all: more like an anteater who was a victim of Monty Python's Owl Stretching Time.

By the time I finished the body, which was knitted in one piece, I knew I was in trouble. It looked like a fat bowling pin crossed with a pig. The head had a strange point on it, and was twice the size of the body. The eye-patches were about 2" too long.

Where did I go wrong???

Trying to sew the legs on was worse: they were long, skinny and tubular, and the animal wouldn't stand up. It splayed on the floor like a disabled anteater.

I  stuffed the body, tried and tried to sculpt it into some kind of shape that wasn't totally grotesque. It didn't work. I tried to open it up so I could unravel it and salvage the wool, which was very expensive.

No dice. It wouldn't happen. I took scissors to the thing, hacking the head off so I could at least have the stuffing back.  My panda lay before me, a mass of unravelled wool and destroyed morale.

I felt like crap. Obviously I had done something very wrong, but what?

Then this morning, something happened. . .

I found an example of the same (finished) panda on a web site called Random Meanderings. This entry is for some time in 2009.

OK then. . . it's supposed to look like  a pig on stilts!

Yes. It has a definite piglet quality, with elongated limbs, as if someone had fed it growth hormone.

And it doesn't look like it would stand up, either, with those floppy legs. For the sake of comparison, let's take another look at the original, then Piggy:

So it wasn't my fault. Moreover, it looks to me as if Random Meanderings followed the pattern exactly. It wasn't bad knitting, at all. In fact it looked very neatly done, which is not such an easy thing with a larger stuffy.

But this is what she got: a "what-is-it?", which I simply could not give to Caitlin.

The only thing I could think of was that I used a yarn substitution. These patterns all call for something called DK, which is not available in Canada and which no one has even heard of in yarn shops (which don't exist any more anyway - you have to dive into sale bins at Walmart).  I used a thinner version of "worsted weight", which makes up 90% of the yarn you can get here. It varies from almost threadlike to so massively thick, it should be labelled "super bulky".

(Blogger's note. No, that's not true. The funny-looking panda was knitted with the correct yarn and STILL came out looking like an English Bull Terrier with anteater genes.)

Whew. These two could be cousins. Is that genetically possible?  Anyway, my poor trashed  anteater-panda didn't look nearly as good as this one because it had weird bumps and bulges and a lot of very visible seams. It didn't look so much like a handsome English Bull Terrior as Eeyore from Winnie-the-Pooh.

 

Let me tell you my best and worst traits:

(a) I never give up.

(b) I never give up.

I just can't. I have to try again, try to win, because failure opens up a desperate plug-hole in the bottom of my spirit, causing all my will to live to drain away.

In my life, I've had about 90% failure, so you can imagine how I feel when something like this happens.

We live in an age where we can order a pattern for a few dollars, and get it via email within the hour. I decided to gamble on Debi Birkin because I think her patterns are brilliant. I was even able to manage Piecrust the Tortoise (below), though it still doesn't look like the original picture.

I made a turtle family which I gave my daughter-in-law for her birthday. The pattern was challenging enough to be interesting, but never once felt the wrath of my scissors or the ripping-out of fibrefill guts.

So now, probably stupidly, I will essay to waste still more money on still more black-and-white wool to try to make Ping Pong Panda. If he turns out at all, he'll be more of a cuddly teddy than a stand-up panda (who never stood up anyway).  But hey - if all else fails, I'll still have that tiny blue sweater. 

(Coda: I found this entry on a site called Stream of Consciousness, dated sometime in 2005. Makes me feel even better, because this panda is a lot closer to the original photo and the knitter STILL doesn't like the result.)

Monday, January 24, 2005

I received The World of Knitted Toys for Christmas. I decided to try a panda bear. It knitted up quickly, but finishing took forever. For me, finishing stuff is not nearly as fun as knitting. Oh well, I'm not terribly pleased with the end product. The corners are too square. And his legs seem awfully long. Maybe next time I'll try something with fewer parts.

Here's the funny looking Panda:

The ravell'd sleeve of care

I can get addicted to almost anything. Mad Men. Caramel corn. Three Stooges videos. All kinds of good stuff. The knitting addiction started early, and has flowed in and out of my life like the tides.

I probably started around age 8 or 10, when "someone" taught me: either my mother, or Mrs. McAigie (don't know how to spell it), a dour old Scottish lady who sometimes looked after us and checked for sore throats using the ornate, grape-carved handle of a sterling silver fork. I remember her saying, "Always knit into the back of the stitch," which I know now is completely wrong.

In spite of all that, I learned. The first big spate of knitting came when my kids were born. I didn't care much about the quality, and they didn't either, but I did turn out some nice stuff: a Scandinavian cardigan in coral, mint and turquoise for my daughter; a pullover knitted side to side for my son. They weren't embarrassed to wear these in public. Oh, maybe they peeled them off when they got to school.

It's a little different story now. Certain family members, who shall remain nameless, don't like my knitting any more and have pronounced it "gross", so I try to avoid making those little sweaters. I've made "blankies" for each kid, probably eight of them by now because they keep wearing them out. I swear, a kid should not have a blankie at age seven.

But what do I have to say about it?

Every once in a while I try to knit something for myself. I remember early attempts, and even see some of them in old photos, and they're not bad, or at least wearable. In the interim, something happened. I just can't do it any more, and I can't quit either. I either give the thing away because it's too big or too small, unravel it and recycle the yarn, or if it's really hideous, toss it in the trash, wasting expensive materials.

So. Having run out of projects, and by now totally, deeply addicted to the hypnotic rhythms of the activity, I decided to take on a cableknit sweater, probably the hardest thing of all because you have to pay so much attention to what you're doing. So if I have my Mad Men DVDs on, I can't fully take in Jon Hamm's breathtaking gorgeousness when in bed with some skank that could be me.

I was totally seduced by the picture, of course. I'll never look like that, for God's sake. And as usual, the color I chose, a sort of caramelly light tan called Heather, now looks green. Store lighting is totally misleading.

Cableknit has such cabalistic instructons as C4F (slip next 2 stitches onto cable needle and leave at front of work. K2, then K2 from cable needle), T3B, T3F, C6F, etc. etc. Sounds like half a postal code to me.

I have to follow a little chart, pictured above. You probably can't understand it, and neither can I. It's hard to stay in step with this thing. It's like an elaborate dance (and I can't dance). Miss a beat, and the whole thing falls apart.

Kind of like life.

Is this why I'm so hopeless at making things for myself? When (I think) I've done an OK job making stuff for other people, even designing patterns for 8 different blankies? I keep trying, too, which I know I shouldn't. Some fatalistic part of me says, hey, face facts. It'll never happen because you're outside the club, always have been, and always will be.

A horrible thought came into my head not long ago, a real soul-killer. I had this realization that sooner or later, probably sooner, the grandkids will see through me (and thus, inevitably, stop loving me). But that wasn't the horrible thought.

The horrible thought was, "By the time they see through me, I'll be dead anyway."

These are the dark things that stir at the bottom of my brain.

I'm reading Furious Love, all about the tempestuous relationship between La Liz and Le Dick (aptly named). Richard Burton apparently harbored a deep self-loathing that drove him to alcohol (his true love). At the end of his life, after a fragile period of sobriety, he went on a bender, suffered a cerebral hemorrhage, and died at 58.

Almost my age.

I'm not going to drink! I'm not. I don't even know where all this is coming from. I'm having a better week, I really am. I'm not so hopeless about the work.

But I'm gaining back the lovely weight I lost, and finding I can't get into all those lovely new clothes that I spent all that money on. I wonder why I have it in for myself like this. (Maybe that explains why I love the Hopkins poem about Margaret, To a Young Child: "And yet you will weep, and know why.")

So I knit. I try to knit up the ravell'd sleeve of care (speaking of Shakespearean actors. Did you know: my maiden name is Burton?). I try to make something out of nothing. Isn't that what writing is all about? What gives us the right? Who do we think we are?

All the stuff I hear about on blogs and message boards now talks about how nearly impossible it is to get anywhere, to get published, even if you've already been published many times. Some wise souls give up. I don't.

Good? Bad? Indifferent?

I may not be cut out for success, no matter how hard I try. And I've been told, repeatedly, that I have the goods, I have the talent. Some folks just aren't cut out.

Or perhaps they are.

**********************************************

POST-SCRIPT. Since the above post, I discovered some things that bugged me in the 9 or 10" I'd already completed on the sweater. I hummed and hawed about it, thought about backtracking and undoing the worst of it, decided I needed a new color and went to take the yarn back, changed my mind, came home and thought about it, then, ruthlessly, ripped the whole thing out and started all over again.

This may well be a metaphor for my life.