I absolutely love this post from Gwen Bortner at Two Sides of the Same Stitch about the top five yarn label lies. Go read it, right now, I’ll wait for you.
These are things that I already know after years in the industry but I think a lot of knitters take the ball band as gospel and they need to know that they may never achieve the gauge that that little band calls for (I think I’ve done it once in all the yarn reviews I’ve ever done at About; it was Vanna’s Choice) and they may not even like the fabric that results when using the recommended needle. I had that issue over the weekend when I was swatching for a cardigan and felt like the suggested needle was too big to make the kind of fabric I wanted.
Ball bands mean well, but they lie because of a lack of standards, or because no one is going to take the time to actually measure the yardage of every ball of yarn as its produced. That’s just the way it is. And that’s not to say you should ignore the ball band entirely, just know that it isn’t always as simple as those little words and symbols would have you believe.
Have you run into any of these yarn label lies in your life? I’d love to hear about it.
I ran into this problem shortly after I started knitting. I bought some Naturally Caron Country for a pattern that required bulky yarn. The label on the yarn matched the gauge my pattern needed and suggested a #10 needle. I started out with the needle suggested – ugh, what a mess! My stitches were so loose you could barely see the design in what I was knitting. Later, I was comforted to see that Ravelry had listed this yarn as more of a dk/worsted weight and a #7 needle is a better choice 🙂 Now, I don’t assume the label is correct.
Woah, I wonder if that was a mistake on the ball band, because there’s no way that stuff is bulky. I can imagine the strange fabric it made…thanks for sharing!