August Yarnbox – Meh

After two months of being very disappointed by my Yarnbox subscription, my final order came it. It’s… ok. The brand is Mountain Colors and the Yarn is Mountain Fusion Teton in the color Sky. It’s a big chunky yarn that I have no immediate plans for, but at least it isn’t novelty yarn like last month, or a hideous color like the month before. It still wasn’t enough to convince me to re-up my subscription.

Excuse my terrible, darkly lit picture

 

Yarn Clubs

A discussion at knit night led me to a new discovery: yarn clubs.

• YarnBox – There’s a new company starting a yarn-of-the-month club, called YarnBox. Basically, each month they are planning to send out a few skeins of yarn from an indie company. The idea being that it creates exposure for the small companies you might not hear of otherwise. You have no clue about the colors or fiber content you will receive. You only option’s are Not to Small and Not to Big, if you wanted to rule out lace or bulky weights. I tried to get a subscription for May, but they were sold out. I’m hoping to get in the June batch. If you visit the Ravelry page for the group, some people have started posting pictures of the May box. I think it’ll be an interesting concept.
• Magnolia Society– Madelinetosh offers two club options. The Yarn Club is a subscription that sends you a sampling of yarns every month. You sign up, choose your color scheme (Jewel Tones, Neutrals, or Naturals) and then for three months you’ll receive a few skeins of yarn. The other option is the Sweater Club. This is kind of a way to do a payment plan on a sweater’s worth of yarn. You pay by the month, and they’ll send you enough yarn to complete a sweater in increments. In the end, you’ll have enough yarn for three sweaters. You do get to choose the exact colors that you want for each.
• KnitCrate – These packages include a pattern, enough yarn to complete it, plus a few extra goodies. You can customize by either getting a Baby, Sock, Beginner, Intermediate/Advanced, Indie, or Mini kit, which will determine the types of projects and yarn included. Project examples include a hot water bottle and cover (April 2013) and a starter kit for the BeeKeeper Quilt (aka The Blanket Everyone’s Making). I think this is interesting and, if I attempt the Beekeeper it may be with their hit. However, I’m not sure I would want to subscribe because you never know what the project will be. For example, I really would have no desire for a hot water bottle and cover. But if you’re an all-encompassing knitter, this sounds like a great club.
• Yarn-of-the-Month Club – This club sends you two partial skeins of yarn every month. The idea is to knit a 5×5 square of each and you could piece them all together.
• Sundara – With the Sock Club, you receive 3 skeins of yarn in different bases that you can pay for in installments. They have some seriously gorgeous yarn that I posted about recently.
• Etsy – A search for “yarn club” will bring up indie run yarn subscriptions for handspuns.