Pennies from Heaven

I have been buying lace again.  I admit it.  Lace is my weakness. Beyond all the yarns on the market,  lace is where I have the least resistance.  It takes up little room, there is extreme yardage and when I have no money I can still knit for a very, very long time with my accumulated lace stash.  To say nothing of the cost of lace yarns.

You can spend big bucks on lace weights  You can get the most exclusive of fibres, if you pay the price.  But you don't have to.  There are many many good lace yarns to be had for about 20 dollars for a 1100 or 1200 metres.  There are tons more for about 10 dollars for 400 to 450 metres.  But you still have to watch your prices carefully.  Places that used to be inexpensive are verging on not so cheap.

Some recent aquistions.

I just got some laceweight from Knitpicks.  It is a nice lace, Shimmer, an Alpaca and silk blend, the green handpainted Bayou of the pictured yarns.  Coveted the colours for a long, long time. Was weak and could not resist.

I picked the gorgeous teal up at the store a few weeks prior.  It is Diamond Yarns Super Alpaca Lace, a pure alpaca, feels like butter.
Was also weak. Have 3 so I could do a nice huge shawl. With beads.  (Already have beads. Bought lace for stash beads, a first in bead stash history.)

When I first bought from Knitpicks, Shimmer was cheap, under 4 dollars a skein.  It is now $6.49 US.  With shipping, exchange (even with our almost at par dollar) it rounds up to about 8 dollars.  Not so cheap. Top this off with a wait of almost 4 weeks to clear customs, was it worth it?  Sure, but it was a colour I wanted that is exclusively theirs.

The Super Alpaca Lace was $8.50.  Shelf price. Without taking into account my employee discount. No wait time, almost no coveting time.  Just sheer delightful greed for a yarn.  Felt good.

My point?  The discount houses are not so discount anymore. Greed aside, at the current prices, with shipping, you cannot always get the best buy onlne.  The best buy is often your local yarn store.  When you take into consideration all the other little things that a yarn store will help you with, your LYS will always be your best buy.

The other interesting thing about lace is some of the interesting new lines.

Noro Sekku, $10.99 a skein at the store up to $14.00 online, plus shipping. Just sayin'.  You just have to see the colours.  And the range of colours in each skein?  Unbelievable.

And the stunning colours of Zauberball lace.  About 20 dollars.  Severely in love with this yarn.  Started it 3 times on Tuesday.  Ripped back each time.  The yarn is perfect.  The knitter is flawed.

All these bright marvelous things serve to make the soft cotton candy pink of my ongoing Icarus  even more delicate and fine.

And ecstasy of lace and some pretty good prices too.