I’m not much for complaining, but it really annoys me when yarn companies do not post yarn weights for their yarn–for example, Berroco! All they give is a gauge size, which is SO helpful! (I’m being sarcastic.)
I complained to them in an e-mail, and I wasn’t very nice about their asinine decision, either.
Anyone else experienced this annoyance with other yarn companies (which I will steer clear of)?
Once you have a little experience just looking at the gauge will usually tell you what the weight is. You can also look on Ravelry. It would be nice if they put it on their site though. Is there a specific yarn you want to know about?
Most companies don’t list the weight, as in sport, dk, worsted or bulky, but you can figure it out from the name (if it has dk or bulky in the title) or by the needle size.
Most yarn I’ve ever seen had the yarn specifications on it and most yarn companies I’ve accessed online have the designations somewhere in the yarn descriptions, so Berraco is an oddball–and a very stupid oddball decision this is, I say!
You can usually figure it out by needle size or by looking it up on the web. I suspect that they really want you to buy their yarn.
Antares, I understand how you feel. I feel very similarly when I pick up a pattern book and try to guess at the experience level needed to do a pattern. ESPECIALLY when I misjudge the skill level. I mean in theory if you’re reading a pattern, understand it, have all the skills it calls for, know the stitches etc. most people would assume they have the ability to do that pattern. (I know I do.) But I can’t count how many times I’ve started a pattern that didn’t have a listed skill level going “Oh, I can do that!” and then weeks later finally frog the entire thing and give up until I raise my skill level some more because I’m no where close to being able to do it. To my way of thinking, why can’t the publishers just list the skill/experience level necessary? I mean REALLY? Is it so hard to tell your reader, “Hey, Reader, we mean this for people that have been stitching for awhile,” or “Hey, Reader, this is the Mount Everest of your hobby, don’t even attempt this before you have 30 years experience,” or “Yo, newbie… The sharp end is the point of the needle, you use that to push or pull the yarn through the loops on the other needle. Learn the rest of what you need to know here.”
Sorry for the slight hijacking, but I can completely understand how you feel when a professional expects you to read their mind. You will probably never know their product as well as they do and the general assumption that everyone knows what something is drives me almost as insane as assuming we’re all idiots.
Because skill level is relative. What’s easy to some is difficult to others, and what some experienced knitters may find hard, a beginner might find easier, just due to different knitting styles and how a person learns things. Some who haven’t been knitting long have no problem with an ‘intermediate’ pattern, while those who may have been knitting a couple of years are intimidated by intermediate ones. I see a lot of complaints about ‘easy’ patterns being difficult, and some about intermediate rated patterns being easy. It just comes down to how individuals perceive things. Now if a pattern lists the skills needed to finish the pattern, that’s much better than an arbitrary skill ‘level’ system. Who’s going to determine it?
Yep, that’s very true. Some people are comfortable going into a pattern where they don’t know the skills and just learn as they go, but some prefer to know the skills first. Depends on your comfort zone.
I hear you, Antares. My complaint is with Lion brand’s acrylics like Pound of Love and Vanna’s Choice. I spent more time trying to redo work because the needle doesn’t pick it all up. It splits. Their pattern site is impossible to navigate. You put in what you want, the skill level, and knitting patterns. I get a mix of skill levels I don’t want, crochet patterns in with it, and some things not even remotely similar to what I want. It’s just not worth my time to weed through it. My emails to them elicited the response, Use the advanced search. I did that and got the same results. After several complaint emails, they stopped responding to me. And I was nice. They’re basically saying, We’re going to keep making our inferior yarns and don’t care what you think of them; we’re not going to make our site more user friendly; that’s just the way it is, deal with it. If that’s their attitude, they don’t need my business either. I’m boycotting them.
Caron, on the other hand, was very accommodating when I made a complaint about one of their yarns. They gave me some helpful suggestions and even sent me a free skein. At least they acknowledged me as a person.
Here’s a trick for splitty yarn - use a looser tension or go up a needle size, easiest for blankets or where you could adjust the size you knit. The looser tension allows the needle to enter sts easier and results in less splitting.
Very interesting! I had not thought of these other complaints–the missing difficulty levels on patterns and the cumbersome pattern sites. Both of these have added to my frustration as well!
And as for difficulty levels, why not just list at the top of the pattern what is needed (sizing, special stitches, etc.–I see it all the time on crochet patterns)?
Certainly there are ways for us to work around these annoyances, but in this day and age when making customers happy SHOULD be at the top of every company’s list, I find it interesting that it’s not!
I won’t give up knitting (and I suspect neither will anyone else who’s been bitten by the knitting bug), but I will steer clear of these companies and find others (like Caron) that put some thought into meeting customer’s needs.
Hey, we’re not asking them to bend over backwards and do something out of the ordinary. We’re asking them to do what other GOOD companies do!