Au Natural??

So I get this email from MaryMaxim.com about the new yarns they have from Bernat...they are called "Natural Blends"...okay I'll bite. Bernat makes great yarn, I love it, so the idea of them making some natural yarns sounds like a great idea....natural yarn that is affordable--not $25 a hank, I can live with that.

At least it sounded like a good deal....what it did was raise the question in my mind of what exactly defines "natural" in a blended yarn?

In my mind, in order to qualify enough to use the term "Natural" in my mind the yarn should contain no less than 60% natural fibre....why so much? Because it is enough to allow the addition of synthetic threads to increase the wear and tensile strength of the fibre yet still allow a person to enjoy the texture/weight/sense of the natural component with out it being over powered by the non-natural.

So what did I find when I pulled up the Bernat Pages???

Bernat Alpaca---70% acrylic, 30% Alpaca
Bernat Cashmere--65% acrylic, 30% nylon, 5% Cashmere
Bernat Soy--50% acrylic, 50% soy

Bernat Bamboo--89% bamboo, 11% acrylic
Bernat Felting-- 100% wool
Bernat Organic Cotton--100% organic cotton (funny, I thought all cotton was organic by nature)

So as you can see, only half the yarn would qualify by my standards and I think at least 2 of them would make people wonder about the honesty of calling them "natural" at all!

I understand that they are trying to give us a product they can keep low priced, but why use the word "natural" at all? Why not simply give it a snappy name...like "Billie" since Cashmere comes from goats or maybe "Kashmir" since that's the breed of goat it comes from.

This would remove the stigma of "natural" yet still tote the fibre content with out being misleading. How many people do you think are going to buy the Alpaca and be disappointed when they find that they paid $5/skein for only $1.50 worth of actual Alpaca!! Or worse, if they got the Cashmere....where they paid $5/skein and only got $0.25 worth of Cashmere!!

How did I get these numbers you might wonder....MaryMaxim has the skeins for $4.99, which I divided by 100 to find out what 1% of the cost was, this I multiplied by the %age of the fibre in the yarn (5% cashmere, 30% Alpaca).

This would be quite the surprise for any one who has a sensitivity to acrylics like my sock partner does. I know when my son was young he was real sensitive to wool (don't see it so much anymore), so sensitive in fact that he had 3 bouts of bronchitis and 2 of pnuenomia before we discovered that the carpet in the living room, while acrylic had an old wool carpet being used as padding underneath...we also discovered that one of the toys he got from his grandparents (an old one of his father's) was made of wool as well.

I would rather they had kept the name more generic making people look at the content...I'm waiting for the first complaint of "false" advertising...which I at least feel it is skirting.

New Stash Arrivals-2007Jul8-14, part4

This is actually my biggest weakness when it comes to sock yarn these days....Brownie Socks. My youngest is a Brownie scout (entering her second year) and I just refuse to pay the prices they want for the extended uniform parts. I know it goes to support the cause, but still I just can not bring myself to pay $5 a pair that she will just out grow and I can't recycle the yarn. At least if I make them myself I can "unstitch" them and then make them to fit her leg & foot again using the same yarn! AND each pair will only have cost me....get this....$1.94 with the Starlette Chocolate, and $3.98 with the Mellowspun Camel & Cocoa! And depending on how well they work up, I may even get two pair out of each....we will have to see. Both yarns are available at Mary Maxim's online.

I can't find a pattern online yet for the official Brownie pattern, but I don't think anyone in her troop will grimace if I find something close (currently the online GSA catalog are out of stock of them and they don't know when they will be coming in... So making is my only other option...the local store didn't have any either).
Well, that's it for stash adds for now! More next week....yep, more!
I've heard of ladies going on "yarn diets"....but remember....as Richard Simmon says "the first three letters in the word diet spell the word DIE!"

New Stash Arrivals-2007Jul8-14, part1

Okay, so I was very naughty last week....but then when isn't a Slytherin naughty, right?....and ordered some more yarn (like I really needed more....but hey I got inspired).

Here are photos of what I got and what my plans are for each of them:

This is my Bernat Galaxy Yarn....this yarn has been discontinued so I've been having quite the time finding it at a decent price--I just refuse to pay $6 a skein for yarn! I thought it would be great to crochet an afghan that utilizes all the colors in the order of the solar system. So I bought (left to right) Mercury, Venus, Earth, Moon, Mars, and Neptune from Mary Maxim's @ $0.97 a skein (I pay full price for very little, let me tell you!). I have located several more colors at http://www.joann.com/ and http://www.herrschners.com/ (they have one called Deep Space, that I would love to use for the background color...I figure 10 skeins would cover me, but they still want about $4.50 a skein...I can wait them out)