Hard to believe

Considering that I am still knitting front button bands, (Note to self:  Hoods are large) the one thing I am not going to talk about is how nice the EZ sweater is.  Maybe tomorrow.

Too my sorrow I have right here in my hands, proof that all things are possible, that what goes around comes around.  

Yes we have here, the single thing, the one item that irretrievably marred the name of good acrylics and manmade fibres everywhere, for all time.  

When people speak of bad acrylics, this is the one thing they all have in mind.  Even young women who were not alive before its demise, know of this stuff through the legendary bubbly slippers.  Slippers made in 1972 still exist, still populate the corners of grandmothers and great grandmothers homes.  

I had heard rumours of its re-emergence.  People told me they had seen it locally  But now I have some.  In my house.  For old time sake?  Nay.  More as a cautionary tale. 

Having a skein means I should look at it as I would any yarn.  So here goes.  

It has the look of unspun roving.  Perhaps its originators meant it to take the place of the unspun White Buffalo of Siwash sweater fame.  Perhaps it was designed to be an easy care alternative.    

Then as now, it is coarse and stiff.  It crunches when you rub it together.  It squeaks when you squeeze the ball.  When I pickup the skein, it sends vibes up my arm that remind me of restless legs syndrome.  

I know that some elderly women wanted to see this stuff back.  I know they want to knit with it because they see it as a good sturdy cost effective buy.  It is not.  For a pair of slippers you will need two balls.  It will cost 8 to 10 dollars for the pair.  Not particularly cheap.  

Then you have to work with it.  It will be very hard on the elderly hands who were looking for it.  Their hands will ache with the knitting of it.  Why do something that will hurt?  

If your grandmother or elderly mother wants to buy this stuff, get enough for one pair, and then go straight to the nearest good yarn shop. Convince them they should buy enough to make a pair of slippers of the coarsest, most inexpensive of wools. If you can, go up a step and get the second most coarsest of wools.  Ask them to knit with both, and see which one they enjoyed working with the most.   

And that ought to put this travesty of 20th and now 21st century manmade fibre production back to where it came from.  The history books.  After all, the feet you save will be your own.

Here endeth my cautionary tale.