My first missed day. And a ramble on yarn presentation

See, I missed blogging yesterday. But I'm not giving up, because much like your typical diet, slipping up once does not mean one gives up entirely. So I'm on again today. I had a good reason to not blog yesterday. Right about the time I was sitting down to post, I remembered that a good friend had gone to a funeral. So I called her to see how her day went. It was her best friend's mom who had passed, someone she called mom. We talked for nearly two hours. So I think it was time well spent, and a good reason to miss a blog post.

And I'm back today.

I'm on the heel flap of the Short Monkey in a Prom Dress sock #2. And once the heel's done, finishing the foot is nothing. 5 pattern repeats and the toe decreases. Easy peasy. It's getting past the heel that's the challenge (and getting through the gusset). So hopefully I'll get through that tonight.

I finally settled on something to do with my Bearfoot and Schaefer Anne. I was originally gonna use the Bearfoot for hubby socks, then for a hat. But I have a better idea. I'm making myself a pair of convertible gloves holding both yarns together. Should be very warm and toasty and classy. Because the Bearfoot is pure black, and the Anne is a black/brown/burgundy mix that looks much nicer in a ball than it does in the skein.

Which brings me to a major pet peeve. I really don't like it when dyers don't re-skein their yarn after dyeing. Because looking at the yarn and seeing the individual colors all separate as they were when dyed does not come close to showing what it's gonna look like knit up. I've become accustomed to Artsygal's yarn that is always re-skeined before she takes pictures of it. And I seriously think it gives a MUCH better idea of how the colors will all blend together and how it will knit up. Much more visually appealing. One of the reasons I've yet to purchase any of Lorna's Laces is because I hate the way her yarn is pictured. It's sitting in lumps as if someone tossed it to the corner and didn't care how it looked. The skeins aren't even nice and evenly skeined. Seems like the yarn was just dyed, dropped on a table, and picture taken. Awful presentation. At least Blue Moon Fiber Arts, home of the ever-popular "Socks that Rock" makes their skeins look decent. They re-skein theirs, so you can see the blends next to each other, instead of looking at a mass of color.

My Shaefer Anne was like that too... a very short skein that was in its original dyed state, with all the colors separate. It just wasn't appealing. I was considering selling it or trading it until I saw a picture of the same colorway in a center-pull cake. The colors blended together so well, and it just looked wonderful. And that's when I could see just what the colors looked like together, and decided on my glove project.

So dyers out there, both commercial and indie, take this as a word of advice: If you want your customers to be happier with their yarn purchases, please take the time to re-skein your yarn. We'd really appreciate it.