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negativecosine
2009-10-25 07:04 pm UTC (link)

THANK YOU YES. (I get ladies coming into my LYS ALL THE TIME with, like, a magazine picture of a stockinette tube goddamn scarf or ribbed beanie or whatever. I show them the yarn, I show them the needles, and then I get to spend forty minutes gently assuring them that look you really don't need a six-dollar pattern for this, why are you begging me to spend more money on something you won't even use?)

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	librarianmouse 2009-10-25 09:04 pm UTC (link)
	I'm making socks from the pattern on the back of the yarn label right now, and people keep saying "You didn't have to buy a special pattern for that?" facepalm (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	negativecosine 2009-10-26 02:50 am UTC (link)
	I'm making socks from, um. A picture I saw like a year ago. People greatly overestimate the usefulness of patterns, pretty much universally. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	kosaginolegion 2009-10-26 02:24 pm UTC (link)
	The only reason I got the sock book I just bought was so I could learn how to turn that arglebargleblasted BLEEEP heel. Admittedly, I could just go with the basic tube sock but I want heels, dang it. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	librarianmouse 2009-10-27 06:37 am UTC (link)
	That's the only reason I'm using the pattern. It's my first pair of socks, and I want to learn how they work. After this, I'll probably be able to wing it, but I need a jumping off point for the first one. (Reply to this)(Parent)

chaos_theory
2009-10-25 09:46 pm UTC (link)

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negativecosine
2009-10-26 02:53 am UTC (link)

I think it's also to do with there being this massive multi-billion dollar crafting industry that works very hard to convince us that we definitely need to by their six-dollar patterns and thirty-dollar books or else we shall be failures as crafters, you know? I see my colleagues selling the books/patterns pretty hard to people who don't need them, which never makes sense to me when I could just as easily sell the same customer a hundred dollars of yarn (cashmere blends, bitches; god's magic pubic hairs have nothing on bison/bamboo/cashmere).

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	the__ivorytower 2009-10-26 04:25 am UTC (link)
	One of my favorite things is, like, a 10$ book that has over a thousand different knitting, crocheting, embroidering, hooking and so on patterns. I love that thing. (Reply to this)(Parent)

chaos_theory
2009-10-26 04:30 am UTC (link)

Well, you know, it's not what you make, it's how much your equipment costs. That way you don't have to actually produce anything and can still feel clever and crafty.

I am allergic to animal hair yarns. The fibers get in my lungs, I break out in hives, I start to itch from the inside out and then I start to wheeze and have to take a benadryl and go have a lie down in a well ventilated room. I am very sad about this because that sounds like the softest, fluffiest, bestest yarn ever.

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negativecosine
2009-10-26 04:36 am UTC (link)

Bison is weirdly soft, it always kind of surprises me! It's also easily some of the most expensive stuff we carry. But there's lots of shiny luxurious plant yarn (Let me show you this bamboo/silk blend! No, please do not look at the price tag, just take it into the sunlight and see how it ~gleams~!), and frankly, there's plenty of NON-ridiculously-expensive stuff that can be made into beautiful works of art, and saying this goes against everything I'm supposed to do as a salesperson, but honestly I do believe that craftsmanship should count for more than the materials, y'know?

Luckily, my boss has also sorta figured this out, which is why we offer schmancy classes on how to design and improve your technique, etc. There's nothing in this hobby that we can't make a buck off of.

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	Idle Hands... chaos_theory 2009-10-26 04:52 am UTC (link)
	Well, if we didn't spend money on crafts, we'd probably be spending it on smack. You're really doing society a service, keeping desperate people from a life of criminality, drug use, and promiscuity. Er...usually. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	librarianmouse 2009-10-26 05:53 am UTC (link)
	So you're telling me I should start a yarn store? (Reply to this)(Parent)

	chibikaijuu 2009-10-27 05:32 am UTC (link)
	Ooh, bamboo/silk blend.... I should probably finish more than one project before buying more yarn, really. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

negativecosine
2009-10-27 05:39 am UTC (link)

Ideal for drapey shiny lace! That stuff is just the heaviest stuff we have, but it's a really beautiful spidersilk-texture sportweight yarn and it looks amazing in shawls and scarves. Pretty useless as hats/gloves/basically anything else, tho I could see one making a really incredible tank top out of it if one were, y'know, goddamn made of money. It's Pearl by Lorna's Laces, if you're curious~

(And, hi, my customers call me The Enabler. :D )

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On the other hand....

queencallipygos
2009-10-26 02:56 pm UTC (link)

I've noticed that a lot of people seem to get very nervous when it comes to crafting and cooking-they want specific directions because they don't believe that there could possibly be no right answer or single way to do something and they are terrified of getting it wrong.

Fortunately, though, it sometimes passes. I have a crapton of cookbooks and I cooked like mad from all of them, and still do tend to follow a lot of recipes pretty closely -- but I think that a lot of the cooking-from-recipes kind of ingrained the techniques into me so that I'm now getting to the point where I say, "....wait, I don't NEED a recipe." It did take that period of cooking-with-training-wheels, but I did get there.

So in some cases, eventually people Step Beyond The Directions.

Thus endeth my thoughts on craft yaoi. (bows)

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Re: On the other hand....

chaos_theory
2009-10-27 04:33 am UTC (link)

There are definitely things you need instructions for, and there are things you eventually learn to do well enough that you can stop having to check out the pattern or recipe every time, and then there are some people who can not handle doing anything without specific very detailed directions for every step, which they will then follow slavishly, with no regard for common sense.

For example: I was making cookies with someone and I said "hey, could you put the eggs in the bowl?" and so she took the eggs and placed them, gently so as not to break them, into the bowl. On top of the sugar and the butter. Put the eggs into the bowl. Years later I still can't figure out what she thought was going to happen after that. That has nothing to do with anything, really, it just continues to baffle me.

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	Re: On the other hand.... edelweiss 2009-10-27 05:13 pm UTC (link)
	the image of the eggs in the bowl has kind of made my day :D (Reply to this)(Parent)

Re: On the other hand....

chibikaijuu
2009-10-27 05:37 am UTC (link)

No, cookbooks have their place - if you've never made something before, they're great for teaching basic technique, and there's nothing wrong with following a recipe even if you do have a lot of experience - just because I know how to make a cheesecake or a roast doesn't mean there's no merit in trying someone else's way of doing it, or someone's specific variation. The same with craft books and patterns- you have to learn how to do it before you can make it up, and sometimes, hey, you really like the look of something special and it's worth buying the pattern to get it just right.

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