Is This Yarn Too Expensive?
In a time of so-called inescapable moralism, where we can’t stop hearing about how the liberals have won and Starbucks cups are ruined, or how Millennials and Gen Z kill businesses with their soft feelings and then gentrify the ashes…. Why is Amazon so successful? Why is a post-Joann reality such a tragedy? It mainly comes down to financial privilege and the choices made by those who have it.
There’s a false statistic that went around a while ago claiming that the average US adult spent $250 a year on their hobbies. The average adult actually spent $3,458 on entertainment and around $1100 on hobbies specifically in 2023, according to a US Bureau of Labor Statistics report. But I remember a time when all I could afford to spend on all of my hobbies combined for a year was $250 (or less) - so I recognize the struggle of finding enough yarn to keep growing in my craft year after year while also trying to grow financially. I think that anyone in that position should be mindful where they can, but shouldn’t be forced to deny themselves any hobbies at all because the system we live in benefits from exploitation. Instead, I call upon those who do have financial privilege to be more mindful and exclusive in their choices, and to do what they can to influence trends for the better.
Take, for instance, the myth that acrylic yarn is more affordable than wool. How can we claim that one is more affordable than the other when they are rarely interchangeable in end result and environmental impact? The basic properties of different fabrics will produce different accessories and garments, making a transition from wool to acrylic or vice versa difficult in some cases. Acrylic fibers will not last the way that wool fibers will, and washing can lead to a fluffy, frizzy, damaged appearance over time - if you have to remake a sweater every 2 - 5 years, and you never wear it because it’s too hot, then the fibers likely aren’t interchangeable when the wool version of the same sweater would likely fit better, maintain its shape, and last for a very long time with proper care. On the other hand, items knit for babies are often made of acrylic blends, 100% acrylic, or plant fibers for a reason - it’s hard to find the energy to hand wash something precious when you’re caring for something louder and infinitely more precious, 24/7. Washable is the way to go! And while wool can be treated to make it washable, it still won’t always survive a rough trip through the washing machine without felting, especially if it’s being gifted to a non-fiber friend. And sometimes, neither wool or acrylic will be appropriate - parent and baby both would overheat in a wool or acrylic nursing cover! A cotton/bamboo blend would be the way to go.
Let me beat a dead horse here with some math:
If we compare two “budget” yarns, Uptown Worsted (100% acrylic) and Deluxe Worsted (100% non-superwash wool):
Uptown Worsted is a 100% acrylic yarn. It costs $8/ball. There are 180 yards in every 100 g ball.
Deluxe Worsted is a 100% wool yarn from the same maker (Universal Yarns). It also costs $8/skein. There are 220 yards in every 100 g skein.
We have more yardage per gram in the Deluxe Worsted. This isn’t a large enough variance that these yarns wouldn’t be interchangeable in a sweater, such as James N Watts’s Worsted Basic Drop Sleeve Sweater.
I test knit this last year and made size 2, which requires 923 yards. I’d love to make another one! In order to be sure of my yardage, I would need to buy 6 balls of the Uptown Worsted (acrylic) and 5 balls of the Deluxe Worsted (wool). In both cases, I would probably have most of my last ball of yarn left for my scrap pile, but I don’t like playing yarn chicken, and when you’re on a budget you can’t really afford to, so we’re playing safe and not sorry. That leaves the cost at $48 for the Uptown Worsted version of the sweater and $40 for the Deluxe Worsted version. That’s not too bad - 16% of that $250 budget we mentioned above, and a sweater takes a few months to work on, so that’s a good chunk of our year covered for only a small percentage of the hobby budget.
Unfortunately, I would likely not enjoy wearing either of these sweaters as much as I enjoy wearing one made from “fancy” fibers - the acrylic version would be too hot, and the fabric would likely degrade over time as I wear it down, making it have a sensory quality that I find “icky” at best. And the wool version would require me to layer it over a long sleeve shirt, given the quality of the wool - not something I tend to do with sweaters like this very often unless it’s going to be very cold.
I’ll use a sweater I knit at the beginning of my knitting journey as an example:
Image description: a femme adult with shoulder-length brown hair looks into the camera. They are wearing a blue-green sweater knit in garter stitch.
The sweater was knit from Lion Brand’s Wool Ease Thick and Quick. The yarn was gifted, but a lookup of the yarn kit on the Lion Brand website shows that it cost $54.95. I also bought size 17 straight and circular needles for this project, which I haven’t used since. I later frogged it and turned it into baskets as the yarn didn’t wear comfortably and the sweater felt heavy.
Knowing my preferences and given my budget, I could split the difference, and go with something like Berocco’s Merino 401 - soft enough to wear against my skin, $10 per 50 g, $90 for my sweater instead of $40. This would work for anyone who does have at least $250 in their annual craft budget. Anyone operating with $100 or less might find themselves disappointed at the end of the project when they don’t have the money for another one for 6 - 8 more months.
So, where does the financial privilege bit come in?
Most of us would prefer to wear the nicest fiber possible if it was within our budget. I have access to my own “fancy” worsted base, Arachne, and you’d better believe it’s one of my first choices every time I need a worsted weight yarn. I love it, it’s luxurious, and I can afford it. But it’s important to keep track of how I use that privilege. Am I encouraging people to endlessly cast on 50 projects? Am I posting 5 finished objects a month, each costing $200 or more to make? Am I shaming people who can’t afford nicer fibers?
How those of us with money to spend in a market choose to interact with said market and with its audience is important. FOMO (the Fear Of Missing Out) is genius from a marketing standpoint. Knitting everything held with a strand of mohair is genius from a marketing standpoint. And having endless time and money for hobbies and to feed your creative freedom is a dream! Who wouldn’t want it! But not everyone needs to make 100 sweaters or more in their lifetime - not everyone will actually want to wear that many different things.
It’s also important to manage our FOMO, and to remember that we don’t need to keep pace with professional knitters and crocheters if we don’t have professional knitting or crochet amounts of time. It’s important to separate a sense of capitalist entitlement from what we actually want - yarn is for everyone. Fiber arts are for everyone. But you should stick to what you can truly afford - there will often be great ways to get what you need if you do a little investigating. For yarn, I recommend checking out your local library, checking for little free yarn libraries in your neighborhood, and unravelling thrifted sweaters when you can. There are also occasionally destash and estate sales with hidden gems. If we focus on living sustainably, we can start forcing change towards a future where everyone is paid fairly for their labor and can afford whatever yarn they’d like to work with at the end of the day.
And one last note - before we get too carried away with our assumption that any one fiber choice is always perfect, let us remember that each fiber comes with its own set of environmental impacts. Superwash treatments coat wool with chemicals and microplastics, and while studies have shown that these treatments may not leak large amounts of microplastics into the environment while breaking down, they do nothing to analyze nanoplastics - creating a hole in our knowledge of what an interaction with plastic is doing for the environment. Cotton is mercerized with caustic chemicals. Plant viscoses like bamboo take more water to create than other yarn counterparts. No choice will be inherently “perfect” - because you exist, and you will take up space and leave a mark on the world around you. That is okay.
Awareness isn’t about wearing yourself down, but about remembering to care for the world around you. Overconsumption of any resource, no matter how renewable it is on the surface, can create an unsustainable demand upon the environment. It’s important for us to avoid marketing that convinces us to cast on more projects than we could ever possibly finish, simply for the sake of a beautiful stash, because driving an endless increase in production through constant cycles of limited runs and FOMO will wear down our environment in ways that we have the power to avoid.
At the end of the day, the project is the project and the price is the price. Making things by hand is generally a slow process, and if this is our hobby, we’re supposed to be enjoying it, not rushing onward to the next project as quickly as possible. In theory, anyways - if accumulating dragon piles of handmade goods is your hobby, more than the craft itself, I fully support you. But you should still be conscious of the impact that a high volume of consumption can have, and where your money is going. For yourself, for your fellow crafters, and for the world we’ll all be leaving behind. And if you have the financial privilege to spend money on your hobby, you should consider doing so - remembering that things that are low in price are still being made by a human, and that human is being paid relative to that price. So, as appealing as it can be to pay the lowest price we can for something - maybe it isn’t always the best choice when we have the option to pay someone a living wage instead.
Image description: a femme adult stands against a grey slatted wall. They have their hands in the pockets of their pale denim jeans. They are wearing a v-neck, garter stitch blouse knit in variegated pink, orange, blue, grey, and green yarn.
This is a top I knit this year - the Trille Top from Knitting For Olive’s Pernille Larsen. It’s knit with my own yarn, Daedalus, held double. It’s an excellent top - comfortable in hot and cold weather, wicks moisture well, doesn’t pill with multiple wears between care sessions/washes. The yarn to make it would cost $76.
Daedalus is a superwash merino blend - the only superwash I offer aside from my sock yarn. All of this to say, every yarn has a purpose and every project has a price. And I’m not here to shame anyone for doing what they can to find joy where they can! Make the choices that are right for you at the time you’re making them! And then tell me about them in the comments!
