Newish development with Patternworks.

I just got a letter in the mail, telling me I would be refunded $8.99 for returning that ball of yarn. Except I never returned it. What probably happened is, someone got my love note and refunded the money, and the computer generated an automatic refund note. (It's a plain old computer-generated form letter.)

Yup. Customer service is sucking over at Patternworks.

Inspiration, honesty (mine), and a little extra yarn money.

I've been working on a new article for Knitty, and during the great rummaging I've done through the internet, searching out cool photos of historical bits of knitting (there's both more and less than you would think), I ran across a site that is great fun: The Victoria and Albert Musem has an on-line exhibit of knitted artifacts. Knitting archives home, V&A. The Victoria and Albert Museum is sort of like the Smithsonian of textiles. They've got everything. If you hit their home page, you can choose among many things besides knitting, but the knitting stuff will get you started. There are several objects in there I want to copy shamelessly. And some just make me go "ooooo". Case in point, the liturgical gloves to the left. Very cool, no? I can't begin to guess what the gauge is, but it's teeny tiny.



Honesty compells me to admit that this morning there appeared in my checking account an $8.99 credit from Patternworks. Apparently they got the little, ah, love note, that I wrote them after the $3.99 shipping fiasco. Not a word otherwise; no apology, no excuse, not even a notice that they were crediting my account. Which goes to show their customer service sucks, which was rather the point of my love note in the first place. Anyway, they tried to make it right in their half-assed way, and here I am announcing it, just to be fair. I still doubt I'll every buy from them again. Someone else sells Reynolds' Saucy Sport, right?

The maiden rant.

My nine-dollar (oh, sorry, eight dollar and ninety-nine cent) ball of yarn came in the mail from Patternworks yesterday. Wow, Julie's knitting cashmere, you're probably thinking. Silk? Angora? No. It's plain old wool, Heilo from Dale of Norway. Why am I paying nine bucks for it? Oh, the YARN was only five bucks. The SHIPPING was FOUR FREAKING DOLLARS. Needless to say, I'll be getting my yarn from somewhere else next time. (Incidentally, I ordered the same day from Halcyon Yarns, and they gave me FREE shipping, for a small order.)

What am I doing with Dale of Norway yarn? Good question. As far as I can tell, I'm being a compelte shit of a daugher-in-law. Last, oh, October, I started knitting a Dale of Norway sweater for my father-in-law for Christmas. Dale of Norway #13811. That's the photo of it up there^. I'm doing it in two shades of blue, and cream. (Yes, there are three colors there. You gotta get up on top of it to see the third color. And just so you know - I hate two colored lice.) I ran out of the light blue accent color a couple weeks ago, hence re-ordering and having to go to Patternworks for it on the off chance it's the same dye lot. (I don't know if it's the same dye lot, because I lost the freaking ball band. But it looks good.) Now I need to finish this sweater, change my name to 'Schlep', or convince my father-in-law that he'd look good in a one-armed sweater.

In other news, the Chanel ready-to-wear collection for winter '06 contains a pair of machine knit cashmere leggings for TWELVE HUNDRED FREAKING DOLLARS. Photos not available any longer because the Chanel website (www.Chanel.com) is now flogging their spring collection. (Does it look like spring out there to you??!!?) Anyway, they're called 'tights' in the description from Chanel, but they don't even have FEET. I'd call 'em leggings. Anyone want me to knit them some leggings? I'll do it for cheap. Say eleven hundred bucks?