It’s just that nothing much worth writing about has gone on this week. February was such a busy month, what with the style show at the shop and BJ Bass’ birthday last week and all, I’m in anti-climax mode. (Hmmm, wonder what kind of hits that’ll get us.)

More on the Bottom Line

After Liz’s post about short weights in hanks of yarn and customer services, I went to the shelf and weighed every single skein of Claudia Handpaint fingering weight. With one exception they all weighed between 45 and 50 grams. My scale only reports weight in 5 gram increments, so if it weighed 49 grams, it would register as 45. Only one skein weighed less, and that showed up as 40 grams.

Since I was the provider of the yarn to Liz, I’ll offer her what I’d offer any other customer, a replacement of comparable material, that brand or another.

As a potential retail outlet for your wares, Liz, what I’d expect from your yarn is consistency. If you don’t have a yardage meter yet, get one. It’s a business investment. Nancy’s Knit Knacks has a nice one, and she’s right down the street from you (though I don’t think she has a storefront). I’m less concerned about the weight of things and more concerned about the yardage. You know that dyes affect the final weight of material, but they don’t change the length.

Knitpicks

In the comments, Jen mentioned that she suspects a nearby LYS is using Knitpicks undyed sock yarn as a base for their hand dyed store brand, and it bugs her. I’ve never seen or used Knitpicks yarn, but I can tell you that there are only so many fingering weight base yarns out there. I don’t know what Knitpicks uses, but it could very well be something undyed that’s available to every other LYSO. On the other hand, since Knitpicks’ prices are comparable to wholesale, it may be that Jen’s LYSO took advantage of the opportunity to buy a few skeins of undyed sock yarn (instead of the larger quantities that we’re obliged to buy from distributors) and test the waters with her own hand dyed line. I’d say she’s pretty clever.

Okay, it’s time for me to go batten down the hatches — we’re expecting a big blow here today.