Eyelash yarn and other fancy stuff
GailAnn
| Posted in Knitting and Crochet on
Yesterday my Mother (84) wanted to go to the Dollar Tree Store, for her birthday (Yes, Halloween is her birthday). Dollar Tree is not one of my usual “haunts” but I did take her there. Dollar Tree is one of those stores where everything is a $ or sometimes two for a $. I was SO surprised to find bin after bin of fancy yarns! Eyelash, bulkys, and Ribbon, some I recognised as having been quite costly at JoAnnes, and many I was unfamiliar with. Some of the colours were shocking, but others were very nice indeed. One cream eyelash with a little black fleck was so tempting I may have to go back today! Gail
Replies
The reason that those eyelash yarns are on sale at dollar and discount stores is because they were a flash in a pan, are no longer "cool" and the yarn industry has gone on to entice knitters with other yarns - for example the self-striping sweater yarn for one (can't remember the name). Yarns are duplicating the fashion industry, hot one year, dead the next (remember Phentex?).
I can still get Phentex in one store! I look for it specifically to add to the yarn for the soles of slippers that I crochet - they last a lot longer & don't wear out so fast. I'll have to look in our dollar stores for yarns - have never seen them there, but who knows? Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised one day.
Back to the Phentex, do you remember how popular it was when it first came out? Everyone was making ponchos - & they were so scratchy & itchy! I think it must have been one of first yarns that was man-made, eh?
Gloria
I remember slippers of Phentex, I had a pair that lasted about ten years! I crocheted a table cloth of it and had to use it for a bedspread as the wine glasses kept falling over the heavy stitches. It went to a thrift store and sold in three seconds of hitting the shelf!
Somebody certainly wanted your "bedspread" :) Yah, the stitches were always so bulky - & the items weren't warm, either, eh? Awful yarn! (except to add to the soles of slippers :) - the slippers made completely of Phentex weren't warm, either - but they certainly wore well. If you made something completely from Phentex, your fingers were sore by the time you were finished - & the yarn is so "stringy", that it caught on any little loose piece of skin on your hands - really hard on the hands - couldn't put enough lotion on when I was using it. I use it now with my regular worsted yarn (1 string of each) just for the slipper soles - it works).
Gloria
Lucky you--our dollar store had one small box with one small layer of eyelash yarn, perhaps last year's colors. I got three skeins of each to make scarves but wish there had been more--at that price, it's nice to have on hand for accents or embellishments!
I did quite a bit of knitting on the eyelash yarn. I am merely a novice knitter. Funny but more experienced knitters I knew couldn't seemed to deal with the yarn. I made enough scarf for my girls (4), my granddaughters and one girlfriend (6) and even kept knitting just for fun and eventually give the scarfs to friends at work. I have noticed that the dollar stores have the yarns but when I decided to go back they were all gone. A friend of mine picked some up for her daughter because they both take part in a charity which does doll making and dressing for Christmas baskets for the low income population. This is a huge operation and they will accept any donations. So, I feel if I do not finish yarns or decide against something, I can donate. Being able to pick yarns from a Dollar store is a bonus I think, Good to chat with you all.
This post is archived.