There's been a lot of talk on the Socknitters list lately about the cost of yarn, particularly "is $23 too much for a pair of socks' worth of handspun yarn?"

I haven't responded to the list but the discussion is getting me down a little. I guess my attitude is: "if it's not worth $23 to you, then it isn't - FOR YOU."

For me, maybe it is.

I won't be QUITE so insensitive as to quote the song lyrics about having been poor and having been rich* and rich being better. But like all of these sort of discussions, I almost get the feeling from some of the posters that there's either an envy there, or a sense of disbelief - of "why on earth would you pay that for handspun yarn when you can go to the thrift shop, buy an old sweater for a buck, unravel it, and use that yarn?"

(*because honestly I never have been POOR poor, not poor in the third-world sense or even poor in the "it's going to be rent or food but not both this month sense. And I'm not RICH rich now, although I do live very comfortably and regard myself as abundantly blessed.)

I don't know. I'm pretty frugal in some ways but there are certain kinds of frugality - what one of my favorite authors calls "petty oeconomies" (and yes, that's how it's spelt, the book is British) that just wears me down and makes me sad.

Now, before you roll your eyes - I know from budgeting. I remember being a college student where I had to make the money I had stretch. I remember using the Farmer's Market on Saturdays as both a food-buying expedition and my entertainment (great people watching, that) for the week. And I remember eating lots of rice and lots of beans and lots of pancakes (yes, pancakes are cheap to make). And I didn't have a car, so I had to shop in the mingy depressing "markets**" close to campus rather than the nice clean sparkly supermarkets on the outskirts of town).

(**Seriously. There was a place called "White Market" - not "White'S Market" as in the Market Owned by People whose Surname is White - but "White Market." This was in a more progressive northern city or I might have made more speculations about the meaning of the name. But the place was a dump, and it was expensive. And in those days, Village Corner - which was a further walk - was worse. It was dirtier, and on one occasion where I got some spoiled meat and called to see if I could get a refund, the manager's attitude was "It's not my problem you got meat that was spoiled.")


Where was I? Oh, the $23 sock yarn. I don't know if it's envy or what, but I get the horrible feeling from some on the list that if I ADMITTED to using sock yarn that cost that (or close to it), I'd be shunned, I'd be seen as some kind of profligate fool. But you know? I have an income that would allow me to do that once in a while without negatively impacting my budget, or my charitable giving, or my putting aside of money for retirement***

(***although given the news that some in NASA say there's a "fair chance" an asteroid will hit the earth in 2036 - about the time I would be retiring - I seriously wonder about the value of scrimping and saving and always denying oneself for the future)

I don't know. To the people with the acumen and the patience to find and unravel and reclaim the yarn from thrift store sweaters, I say God bless them. To the people who have learned to raise their own sheep and spin their own yarn and make things for less money than I can (I can't see keeping sheep in my tiny backyard, even if I suspect some of my neighbors of keeping chickens), God bless them.

But don't deny the possibility that there is a certain joy for people who work hard, and long hours, in taking a small portion of their paycheck and just buying something nice. Something that makes them smile every time they touch it, something they get hours of pleasure out of making, maybe something that came through the hands of a small artisan who has to charge higher prices to compete with the thrift shops or the third-world-spun yarns out there.

It's back to my old theme - don't diss people for the choices they make, if those choices are not your own. I know, there would be some who'd point at me and go "but you don't have a husband, you don't have children to support." And I'd reply: that's very true. And I also don't have the joy and comfort that comes from having those close relationships. So don't judge me for trying to get a little joy or comfort in alternative ways, by taking care of myself emotionally, because I often don't have anyone around to do it for me.

Perhaps my other argument is this: in this world, it seems that a person has either time or money. I have more money than time at this point - or, a better way of saying it, my time is worth more to me. I don't have the time to either spin my own yarn (as much as I'd enjoy learning), nor do I have time to do extensive "yarn reclamation." So for me, the closest I can get to hand-dyed or handspun yarn is to buy the fruits of someone else's labors. If I tried to do it all myself - well, I'd probably have piles of undyed fleece sitting in my store room. Or old sweaters from the Goodwill that I needed to rip out, wash, and re-skein. But I'd rather just cut to the chase - to the knitting - and to do that, I buy the yarn ready to go.

And if people envy the fact that I have the ability to do that, whatever. They may have things in their lives that I would envy. As Plato said: be kind, for you never know what burdens the other person is carrying. Or there's also the Edward Arlington Robinson poem about Richard Cory****

(****Before anyone becomes overly alarmed: no, I do not consider that poem as applying to myself. It's just an illustration - that everyone, no matter how lucky they look, has difficulties in their lives, crosses to bear. And it kind of wears me down to hear the envy in some people's voices about those who appear to have "more.")




(And to reward those who have read this far: there is a horrible, and yet grimly amusing Richard Cory Interactive Online Game out there. Yes, it's pretty much what you would expect. But if you grew up - as I did - reading those "Create your own Adventure" books, it will probably make you chuckle)