In earlier times

I have a small table (Well, it's really a barstool, and it's the thing I have my ballwinder anchored to for when I wind yarn). I also keep magazines or books I've not reshelved yet on it. I noticed this morning I had stuck a Patternworks catalog - it came when I was busy and I guess I didn't do the glance-and-throw-out that I often do with catalogs.

I haven't ordered from Patternworks in YEARS. (They have changed a little bit since the earlier days; one big change being they have different owners now). But they were my go-to place in my early days back at knitting.

I started knitting again (after having learned as a child) in 1996 or 1997, while I was working on my doctoral dissertation. I had been doing a lot of quilting but felt like I wanted something easier to pick up and put down (hand quilting is that way, but piecing is not, especially if you don't have a dedicated space for your sewing machine). I got interested in knitting again after learning how to knit in the round on double pointed needles (I've never liked the seaming part of finishing off) and also after trying some yarns that were at least part-wool. (When I learned, all that was widely available was acrylic: it was the Great Crafting Slump of the late 70s, also a time when quilting fabric was thin on the ground).

But anyway. I got one of those Catalog of Catalogs things (I don't even know if those still exist) and a couple of the catalogs listed you could get for free (I was a "broke" grad student and I never really liked paying for a catalog that I would likely be ordering something - therefore, spending money - out of) were for Patternworks and for Lion Brand.

Lion Brand catalogs have changed a lot. I don't get them often any more; they used to come about once a month, it seemed. (They also used to have larger photographs of the yarns in them, and sometimes free patterns using the yarn they sold). It was sort of a long narrow format, and often printed on non-glossy (or low-gloss) paper, and often the cover had some kind of a cartoon featuring their lion mascot. (One I remember is a recreation of Grant Wood's "American Gothic" with the lion and his lioness)

Patternworks, though - Patternworks was the really fun catalog. They carried a lot of different yarn lines, so they had a huge diversity of stuff. The first time I ever realized that sock weight yarn existed, it was through Patternworks. (Those were the days of Stahl "Socka" - remember those? I still have some vintage Socka in my stash, from before the company merged with another one). And they had books. (I have a couple of the Socka sock books - I have not looked at them in quite a while; I should look at them again sometime for inspiration when my sock needles are "empty") I would scrape together a little money, what I felt I could spare from my RA or TA paycheck, and send off an order. Or I'd call it in, using the credit card that was still somewhat of a novelty to me. (I was in grad school before I got my first credit card).

And then the waiting. Eventually the box would come in the mail, and there'd be the joy of opening it and seeing the yarn I ordered, or the books, or the knitting needles. (I still have lots of the Brittany wooden dpns I ordered during that time).

Once, when someone on the Knitlist, misunderstanding some tariff changes, claimed that the price of imported wool was going to at least double, I believed them, and ordered all the Socka I felt I could afford. The change never happened, or the person misunderstood badly, and the price of yarn didn't jump, it just continued the slow upward creep that everything has. (I remember tracking the price of Koigu. I think it was something like $7.50 a skein - yes - when I first started knitting. Now it runs somewhere around $14)

There weren't many online sources of yarn, and I don't think there were any online-only ones back then. The Web was still kind of in its infancy as a mechanism of commerce. (I remember placing my first online order with Amazon and worrying hard my credit card number was going to be stolen. Hah. Now, I regard credit card numbers as somewhat disposable; I've had the card I use for buying gas and online purchases replaced three times over the years).

Now, things have changed so much. There are hundreds (maybe thousands, if you include places worldwide that will ship to the US) of places that will sell me yarn or books or needles or "accessories" like stitch markers. There's Etsy. There's the wonderful ability to buy patterns as a .pdf file online and get them automatically sent to your e-mail mailbox or to your "library" on Ravelry.

And yet, sometimes, I think maybe those early days were a little more exciting for me; it felt like there was more to discover, more to track down and find.