I am MAD @ KnitPicks!

"Noreen's Knit*che" spun a FINE 'yarn' n news:42f52cdd snipped-for-privacy@newsgate.x-privat.org:

I've pretty much decided to boycott them. JM2C, Noreen

I'm sorry they have not treated you well. Dang. I just thought about ordering from them too. I wanted some lace weight. Coggie

Oh, Coggie, go ahead and order, but I'd really suggest you do it by PHONE, rather than online! The phone ORDERING people are great, it's their customer service people who have treated me shabbily! HTH, Noreen

Another reason for you to be a bit ticked - their yardage "estimates" are off by as much as 20% on the low side. A galpal of mine brought over a shitload, er, boatload of the "fingering" yarn today to reel off so that she can dye smaller hanks in a variety of colors for a project.

In every hank the actual yardage was short, sometimes by as much as

20%; the average shortage was about 12%. We weighed each hank prior to reeling off and in all cases the weight was spot-on the stated hank weight. I'm all for correct labelling, but if you make a statement about yardage you'd best be less than 5% off; I'd be more than a little peeved if I relied on their yardage statement and came up short on a dyelot-specific project.

Another thing we noticed that dyed "Wool of the Andes" advertised as worsted weight is shorter in stated yardage than the natural "dye your own" version that is ostensibly the same yarn.

So, if you're planning to use a KP yarn for a large project you'd best plan to order 20% more than you think you need.

On Sat, 6 Aug 2005 16:29:12 -0500, "Noreen's Knit*che" spewed forth :

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Reply to the list as I do not publish an email address to USENET. This practice has cut my spam by more than 95%. Of course, I did have to abandon a perfectly good email account...

Yep, more fuel for my angry fire, Wooly! Noreen who THOUGHT her last hanks were short!

On Tue, 9 Aug 2005 20:31:07 -0500, "Noreen's Knit*che" spewed forth :

Oh, the weights were spot-on. The heaviest hank was perhaps 3/10 of a GRAM over, most of them were so close as made no difference. I ordered a book from KP a while back because it was on sale. Most of the gals in my knitting circle love the stuff, and who wouldn't - its inexpensive and well-spun yarn, but I don't think its as inexpensive as KP would have us believe.

Perhaps they're overstating the yardage, perhaps the mill in Peru where the stuff is spun has given KP bad information, or perhaps they're doing it intentionally. Whatever the case the ballbands ought to be corrected - by hand, if need be.

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Reply to the list as I do not publish an email address to USENET. This practice has cut my spam by more than 95%. Of course, I did have to abandon a perfectly good email account...

This is an issue not limited to KP. I visit Elann.com almost everyday, and right now they have OnLine Linie 21 Marly on sale. They have a specific disclaimer in the product description that the yardage is not what is printed on the ball band. At least they have discovered it and notified the website visiters. This has happened before with another yarn - I think it might have been from Uruguay.

This is probably one of the reasons why when you are knitting to gauge, have ordered the correct amount of yarn and end up short. I usually order 1 or 2 balls extra "just in case".

Shelagh

Has she reported this to KnitPicks? I'd be interested in their response

On Wed, 10 Aug 2005 10:34:41 -0700, Ranee Mueller spewed forth :

Sorry, I wasn't specific enough: the dyed WOTA is advertised as 50g and whatever yardage, the undyed WOTA is 100g and more than twice the advwertised yardage. Makes ya go "Hmmmm!"

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On Wed, 10 Aug 2005 18:43:09 GMT, "Tante Jan" spewed forth :

I don't know if she has yet; when she left my place yesterday she was muttering about scathing email to customer service.

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On Wed, 10 Aug 2005 14:28:58 -0700, Ranee Mueller spewed forth :

The ballbands I looked at showed shorter yardage for the dyed stuff than for the natural. I wasn't referring to the website at all, but to ballbands. Yet another thing I wasn't absolutely clear about.

Today may be the day that finally convinces me I should Just Not Deal with Internet Idea Exchange forums.

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Reply to the list as I do not publish an email address to USENET. This practice has cut my spam by more than 95%. Of course, I did have to abandon a perfectly good email account...

What I find interesting is that the gauge recommendation looks the same but is different. The st/in is the same but the dyed wool is worked on #6-#9 needles, while the undyed wool is worked on #7-#8 needles to get the same gauge. If the undyed wool will only knit to gauge on #7 or #8 needles, why would dyed wool be more adaptable in gauge so that #6 or #9 needles would still work?

=Tamar