Hide your wallet, crafty friends, because this post is gonna get spendy.
I’m here to tell you about the wonder that is yarn clubs–a way to be surprised by exclusive colors in your favorite yarn brands through the mail. It’s pretty much my new favorite thing.
First of all, I will confess to having achieved SABLE (Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy). If I stopped buying yarn today, and lived to be one hundred, I’d probably still die with yarn on my hands. I definitely do not need more yarn.
Also, I am unreasonably addicted to sock yarn in particular. Why? It’s super pretty, it comes in fun colors, and one skein can make a pair of socks or be part of a shawl. Basically I’m always knitting socks and shawls, and if I’m being honest, I never wear the shawls.
At the moment I belong to three yarn clubs: Primrose Yarn Co, Hedgehog Fibers, and Round Mountain Fibers.
Yarn clubs work like this: you pay up front and sign up for a three month commitment. Every month (or every other month depending on the retailer) you get a package in the mail that contains surprise yarn, usually two skeins. I love it so much because it’s like past Elyse sent present Elyse a really cool gift. More than once I’ve had a crappy day and come home to a squishy package on my doorstep just waiting to be squeed over. Pretty yarn makes everything better.
For Primrose Yarn Co, I’ve signed up for six months of their Adelaide Singles club. I already knew that I liked the weight and feel of the yarn since I’d purchased some at Rhineback last year. I also really like the colorways that Primrose offers–they tend to be really bold and stunning with a lot of speckling.
I was really thrilled to get Primrose’s April colors since they go together (this isn’t always the case) and could easily be worked into a shawl together.
Their March club was a little more vibrant:
It’s a bit hard to tell in the photo, but the skein on right, Riders on the Storm, is actually an ultra dark green and it’s beautiful.
Since I loved the Primrose Yarn Club so much, I also decided to sign up for Hedgehog Fiber’s Skinny Singles club. Hedgehog Fibers has a cult-like following, largely because OMG their yarn is beautiful and vibrant and it works up beautifully. I opted for the Skinny Singles club versus the sock yarn club because I’ve found their sock yarn base to be splitty.
I was hoping to get some bright, neon yarn for sock making and I was NOT disappointed. I think I moaned a little when I opened March’s package:
I am SO excited to make some wild socks with those.
Finally I also love Round Mountain Fibers. Their club is a little different because I belong to it through my local yarn store (LYS). I signed up for a three month commitment to their Aquatic club (she has four themes: Botany, Entomology, Ornithology and Aquatic) and I pick up my yarn at my LYS every month.
The first month was a color called Rainbow Trout and we need to talk about how beautifully it’s knitting up. LOOK AT THAT POOLING.
The socks I’m making with this yarn are a pair of basic afterthought heel socks using this pattern by Laura Linneman.
I’m also working on a pair of socks in a cabled pattern called Valyrian Steel to coincide with the end of Game of Thrones. The yarn I’m using is called Mutant Bath Bomb and it was one of the club colors from Primrose’s February Club. Also it matches the book I’m reading.
Whew. That was a lot of yarn pr0n.
Yarn club costs vary depending on which brand you choose, your shipping option, and how many skeins per month you get. If you’re a person who makes larger projects, like sweaters, it might not appeal much since you’re going to get a smaller quantity of yarn. But if you need a gift for someone, this sort of subscription is a terrific option.
The sign ups for these club are limited so you want to keep an eye on the company’s social media (Instagram especially) for club opening dates. They only send out limited stock, so they keep the sign up period short.
I’ve also recently learned about Gamer Crafting in the UK that offers geeky themed yarn club colors (this month’s was inspired by Pikachu and by Lord of the Rings). She also has a OTP collection with colors like “IvyQuinn” and “Bubbleline.”
Bye bye, paycheck.
Do you belong to any yarn clubs? And what are you stitching?
That is some beautiful yarn you have there, Elyse! I have recently finished a long-term project – two years on the needles. It is a jacket in a gorgeous art-deco stitch pattern with fantastic finishing details. (You can see it here: https://knitigatingcircumstances.com/2019/04/20/its-all-in-the-finishing-hanne-falkenbergs-sofi-combi-jacket/.) I also finished another long-term project: a lovely, big, soft, squooshy cowl in a textured pattern, knitted in a great pop of orange (https://knitigatingcircumstances.com/2019/05/04/highland-rogue-cowl/). Now, I am project-less and searching for some inspiration. Maybe a yarn club is the way to go! Thanks for the yarn-y post!
@Elyse, I come her for book reviews, not to be seduced with yarn. I went into a 12 step program when I finally admitted my knitting/crocheting is, let’s call it inconsistent. It’s a tension thing. That doesn’t mean I don’t have more yarn and patterns than the law should allow for a bad knitter, just that I can’t add to it and have apologized to everyone who received a trapezoid shaped afghan or curled up scarf. Now I’m going to end up down a rabbit hole of yarn sites. You and the Bitchery need to start respecting my recovery goals, damn it.
First, a thing I learned from knitting and spinning podcasts: Never, ever, ever! use a singles yarn for socks! Not even if it’s called a “sock yarn.” Not even if there is nylon in it. Because once the wear and tear of use wears through the single ply in the socks, that’s it: instant rapidly expanding hole. No other plies to hold it together. Singles just can’t handle what we put our socks through. (Unless you use them as bed socks, in which case they will hold up better.) Socks should be made with yarn that has at least three plies. If you look at Regia and Opal, their fingering weight sock yarns are “4 ply.” So you should maybe plan to use those singles in less wear-intensive projects like hats, cowls, or faded sweaters. (But then there’s the pilling.)
Second, while I
likelove the idea of yarn clubs… In reality, I am too persnickety about colors (shades, hues, variegation…) to take part in one of my own initiative. If I were gifted a membership…well, who am I to look gift yarn in the mouth? But I would still prefer to pick my own yarn: color, weight, composition—and consider how it coordinates with stuff in my wardrobe. As I said: persnickety. But yarn club pictures are fun to ooh and aah over. And there’s no denying that having someone else make the choice for you is freeing. (I recently gloried over a tableful of Hedgehog Fibres and was happy that I didn’t have to choose among them as I was buying yarn for stranded mittens which was on a different shelf by a different company. But it really was awe-inspiring.)Anyhow, your socks are looking really good. How do you like working with the flexi flips/crazy trios? I mostly like to magic loop 2-at-a-time, but vanilla or stranded socks using 25cm circs—preferably concurrently—is possibly my new favorite method. (The Addi Sockwonders are my first love, but I think I heard that ChiaoGoo has some too?) If there’s only one ball of yarn, I’ll grudgingly do one sock at a time, because who wants to wind a perfectly fine ball of commercial yarn into two equal balls? Not me! And I’m giving toe-up another try to see if I can make socks that fit my feet. (My first two tries, at the beginning of my sock knitting career, were way too large. Because inexperience.)
I went through some contest comment threads on Ravelry, and all of a sudden I want to knit all of the hats. And cowls. And stranded mittens. And buy all of the new yarns for them. Because obvs. But I need to get back to fighting with the heel of my toe-up socks, because somehow it is coming up eye of partridge. And it shouldn’t. o_O (Can I stand it or will I frog back…?)
ReadKnitSnark Elizabeth Moon (the science fiction and fantasy author) does all her heels in eye of partridge as she reckons it wears better than plain knit, so maybe just go with it?
I really adore the yarn some of these independent companies create! I love the colors and they can have such a luxe feel and better workability than commercial yarns. Unfortunately because much of the crochet I do is intended for pattern publication, I have to use yarns that are easily accessible to the majority of the readership, so I need to stick with widely available brands. 🙁
At present, I have interrupted Christmas Crochet Season (ie using up my stash to make hats and scarves and cowls for gifts and hopefully getting it down to one box) to work on a new design to wear to an upcoming needlework professional convention and hopefully garner more interest in my crochet skills. It’s a pineapple pattern gilet that comes down to about my knees, with interlocking pineapples that come halfway down the back and a pair on each side of the front and then a border of them at the bottom. Because these prototypes get returned to me I try to make them something I or a friend can continue to wear, and the only color I could find that would work with my entire wardrobe was a fairly boring Caron One-Pounder in Off White, but it actually looks pretty good now that it’s done up and will show up nicely over a darker color. It worked up surprisingly quickly (I got the majority of the repetitive work on the body done while minding my table at WhoLanta last weekend) and am just about to finish off the border.
@Elyse: have you discovered Indigo Dragonfky? Their yarn is one of my favourites. They periodically have various clubs which so far I have managed to resist, but only because I currently have many, many skeins of their wool in my stash.. https://www.indigodragonfly.ca/
I’d also recommend Knitted Wit (especially their Victory Sock base) for their amazing colors, and the color names would probably resonate with a lot of folks here.
I am knitting a Pretty in Jeans sweater, but am stuck at the sleeves. And a West Coast Cardigan… which is also stuck at the sleeves. Then I have a plain sock in Sweet Georgia Yarns Bulletproof Sock for drag-it-around knitting and a flax light baby sweater for a friend in self striping yarn.
The best thing about yarn clubs is that they drag me out of my colour comfort zone. While I’m not doing one right now, most recently I’ve done the Rocking Sock Club, Tanis Fibre Arts, and Gauge Dyeworks.
https://gaugedyeworks.com/ ones are pattern + yarn and they’re very interesting.
I never learned to knit, even though I wanted to. Then I see all these gorgeous yarns and it makes me want to try again. Problem is, I’m a lefty. Both my mother and grandmother tried to teach me and couldn’t. I couldn’t do it right-handed, and they couldn’t teach me left-handed. Any lefties out there? How did you learn?
Sandra, I’m a lefty and have been knitting for 50 years. I learned from my grandmother, who was right-handed. Things are easier now. These days, the best knitting resources are on the internet. Search on youtube and you will find tons of references for lefty knitters. If you join Ravelry, there is a group for lefties called On the Other Hand. It is not terribly active but they have a list of resources for lefty knitters which you would find useful.
Sandra, I understand that plenty of left-handed knitters knit continental, where you hold the yarn in your left hand like so: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HXWAM6Lne4
Other ways to knit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5HAqG8Prbc (Though mirror knitting might seem most natural to you, it is not optimal if you want to use other people’s knitting patterns because you would have to rewrite them for mirror knitting and that is A LOT of extra work.)
Anyway, Youtube is full of knitting tutorials. I usually start with VeryPink Knits for instruction, but as Staci flicks/lever knits and I pick/knit continental, I then sometimes seek out other instruction videos to check hand and yarn positioning etc.
Re: eye of partridge. My heels were supposed to stack the slips and knits, not do any eye of partridge. I don’t knot what happened, the heel directions felt too vague. Or confusing. Or my brain couldn’t compute. I didn’t frog as I don’t mind a textured heel turn and I figured out what I was doing for the heel flap. (The leg will be 1×1 twisted rib so the continuation up from the stacked slips and knits is kind of important visually.)
I was walking around my stash closet (yes, let’s just say up front that that’s what it is) just today and wondering how long I would have to live to actually use it all. Or how many sweaters that’s gonna mean.
How dare you mention indie yarn clubs and not mention anyone faking their deaths?? Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it!
@Kelly, just wanted to say that your projects are GORGEOUS. I wish I knit like that… I’m all swoony from admiration!
@Nagarajas I was just going to say that yarn clubs are a no for me since there is a high probability of their owners being dead for at least 10 minutes.
I’ve been thinking about signing up for a club now that I’m back to knitting again. Is there one you’d recommend for a beginner knitter with a budget? Or is this more for serious knitters?
@flchen1, Thank you! It’s been awhile since I’ve made someone swoony!
I just joined my first yarn club late last year with Woolberry Fiber Company. They are local dyers to me (until they move this summer) and I love their yarn and colors. It’s been fun ordering each month (they don’t offer subscriptions) and seeing what arrives. Bonus, if you order each month for a year, you get a bonus skein the 12th month.
I love the ones you’ve gotten lately. Really pretty! I’ve only heard of Hedgehog Fibres, so I’m looking forward to checking out the other ones.
Goddangit I don’t need more yarn, Elyse…
I’m working on my eighth Newborn Vertrebrae in a bright greeny turquoise. It’s a great baby knit and a cute project.