A Journey of Snobbery

When did I become a fiber snob?

I remember learning to crochet when I was about 12-ish. I don't remember exactly how old I was. I wanted to learn how to crochet bedroom slippers and doilies. Our family knew this old lady who loved to crochet and sew, and I asked her one day if she would show me how to crochet. I went to some department store and got a skein of royal blue Red Heart acryllic yarn. (Blue was my favorite color back then.)

It took me two or three lessons (and practicing in-between) to learn how to get my tension right and how to make granny-square slippers. They looked like elf shoes, but granny-ish. I decided I'd make a pair for EVERY PERSON I KNEW! After about 10 pairs, I was ready to move onto something else . . . but that's not really part of what I'm talking about.

Acryllic yarn was cheap. I could afford it. After all, people started to just GIVE it to me when they learned I was crocheting. And you could find big huge bags of it at the thrift shop. And . . . wasn't acryllic yarn the only yarn that existed? (I think that in Aberdeen, Washington in the '90s, it WAS the only yarn that existed.)

I moved on from crocheting with yarn, to making doilies and crocheted edgings on blankets and necks on kitchen towels. Cotton was nice. It had a nice, comforting feeling to it. I learned that there was the stuff you could get at K-mart, and there was the expensive stuff (made by DMC) in the "Yarn Basket" (the shop in a spooky part of town, next to the tattoo parlor and some questionable hair salon and the pog shop -- maybe that was part of the tattoo parlor). The expensive stuff was WONDERFUL to crochet with! It was smooth and it behaved well and it made the most beautiful doilies! The cheap crochet thread was a little rough, like paper. The drape of the doily was stiff, not fluid like the expensive stuff.

I determined at that time that I did not want to spend countless hours using cheap crochet thread to make a project that I didn't like to look at or touch. It was also about that time that I realized that I didn't like crocheting with "yarn," because "yarn is yucky."

In 8th grade, I learned how to knit in Young Women's. We made dishrags, which had to be made out of cotton yarn. I remember my dad taking me to the Payless in Hoquiam, and picking out some blue cotton yarn and some blue #7 needles. I got Rachel some yarn and needles, too, which weren't blue. The needles were aluminum, and they clicked together when they touched each other.

Knitting with cotton yarn was AWESOME! It wasn't "yucky"! But it was expensive. And when it got wet, it got super heavy and lost its shape. So it was ONLY good for DISH RAGS. And dish rags were hard to make: the little loops fell off the needles and I didn't know how to fix it. Knitting wasn't as fun as crocheting.

I remember checking out about 50 books at the library on how to knit and crochet. As far as I was concerned, that's all the library was good for. You could reserve books and they'd come a few days later from some OTHER library. There is one pattern I found and loved -- I wish I'd made a copy of that lace pattern. Oh well. Lace was the only thing I wanted to make, because it used crochet thread that was cotton.

When I went to BYU, I had a roommate who loved knitting. The only thing she could knit was dish rags -- the same pattern I'd learned in Young Women's ten years earlier. She would knit during church to stay awake (she had some narcoleptic tendencies), and one day I asked if I could try, and she showed me how to do it. Way too many steps to make just one stitch, I thought.

There was a yarn shop in town that offered classes to you if you would buy supplies in their shop. I went in there and looked at all the projects on display. Cute blankets, baby sweaters, and lots of socks. I'd made crocheted socks before, which were somewhat nubby and granny-looking. But these knitted socks were GORGEOUS. "People still knit socks?" I wondered. And I noticed that the yarn they used had different fiber contents in it -- there were wool blends, silk blends, cotton blends . . . you could make warm, wooly socks for the winter, and light, airy socks for the spring!

I made my first (and, admittedly, only) pair of socks from yarn and needles I bought at that store. They had these special needles called "bamboo" needles. Yes, they were NOT slidy aluminum -- my stitches could STAY ON the needles without SLIDING OFF!! This was a miracle. A miracle I really loved! My yarn was a wool-acryllic blend, so they wouldn't shrink when I washed them.

I went there one afternoon looking for some silk yarn to make leg warmers out of. The owner suggested some other yarn, because silk stretches. The yarn he recommended was a synthetic something-or-other, which was kinda fun and stripey-- but they stretch out after one wearing, so I kinda grossed out over that yarn.

My final year at BYU, I took a textiles class. I learned in that class about how fabric was made, what the pros/cons of each fiber was, and really, why I liked what I liked or didn't like. I gained an appreciation for why some fibers are expensive and others are cheap, and how to get what qualities you're looking for in a certain garment/item. I think it was about that semester when I bought my final skein of acryllic yarn.

I wonder now, as I knit a mohair/wool capelet for my little sister, who can't appreciate how much the yarn costs to make, and will certainly not take care of it. It cannot be washed in the washer, or it will turn into a doll-capelet-sized rug thingy. But, how CAN I knit it in a cheap yarn? It would pill, it wouldn't block pretty, and in the sunshine, it would look orangey and cheap. And after all those hours of knitting it, THAT would be a DISASTER.

Why do I have to be such a fiber snob?