Photoless Friday (07): More on Paternayan, or...?

Am participating in an interesting exchange about needlepoint yarns on the Facebook page Discount Needlework: Which is your favorite wool needlepoint yarn?.

I've learned of a brand, new to me, of my preferred three-ply wool yarn that doesn't want to deal with web-only based companies (get with the program, folks!), so their products aren't available to me.

I'd need to see and feel a sample, anyway.

Let me tell you what happened....More......

A few years ago, having a chance to return to the States for a visit, one of the top things on the list--after "hug relatives"--was "buy Paternayan yarns," already having the great StitchPainter program up and happily running on my computer.

Not familiar with that part of of town, I even had done my "let your fingers do the walking for stores selling Paterayan yarn in the area" work on the internet, prior to departure (Cosmos bless the internet). Found the store pretty easily, was in 7th heaven once again surrounded by walls of variously colored yarns. So much choice, such availability.

"I'd like a good handful of the following Paternayan yarn numbers, please." Having no time to waste, I also had done a census of my stock at home, and made "Need" and "Want" lists before leaving (the distinction partially based on the state-o'-the-wallet-of-the-moment).

"Oh," (eyes lighting for the kachink-kachink-kachink of the cash register floating before her eyes), "great...here...here...here...here...and here. That will be $XXX.XX, please, thank you, goodbye, do come again!"

And out the door I went, so happy to have guaranteed postage- and risk-of-loss-free stitching for the months to come.

Only that, when I got home thousands of miles away, and started pulling them out, feeling them, looking at them more closely (it is such a bother to have to pull out my reading glasses every other minute...the next time I have to renew them, I'm going to take the plunge, and try graduated lenses, despite everyone's horror stories about how hard it is to adapt), they weren't Paternayan.

I won't cite the company's name.

I'm sure it's a perfectly good brand.

It's just that their three-ply yarns are a bit thicker than Paternayan, but I could have put up with that.

What really really bugs me (gives me shivers of revulsion, even) is the very unpleasant slippery feel.

Like they're kinda slimey in a dry sort of way.

Maybe it helps the yarn slide through the small holes of the canvas, but...

Yuck.

So, web-based only yarn stores, beware. I want a free sample (even half of one strand will do) before buying something new.

P.S., since I talk about two brands in particular, StitchPainter and Paternayan, it's probably a good idea to remind everyone that I get no kickbacks, or payments, of any kind. Just speakin' my mind (oh, that feels good, doesn't it?!).

Photoless Friday (05): how do YOU organize your yarns?

I am organized in certain areas of my life and house. My desk is usually a mess (though, really, I do know--pretty much--what are in those piles organized by subject matter), but my needlepoint yarn drawers are pretty darn tidy...More......

One small drawer is dedicated to my patterns that I worked up in StitchPainter together with the inspiring material, the one, or two, ready-made patterns I have bought (and never made up, but I sure do enjoy looking at them!), lots of inspirational photos in folders, a couple of small nice frames picked up on sale (why do they never work for the project at hand?), the roll of masking tape to finish off the edges while working the canvas, a couple of extra needles (never at hand when desired, but always THERE when searching for something else), and a sample of plastic canvas I wanted to try for seeing how to needlepoint tissue box covers and Christmas time gingerbread houses (maybe if I combined those two concepts, I'd actually DO it), my Paternayan yarn sample color chart with some handwritten notes. That's about it.

The other two somewhat deeper drawers are dedicated to my spare yarns, each grouped by color families into clean big baggies. I'm still working on some colors bought 15 years ago, folks!--those are the ones I should start using to do the outer two stitch rows just for firming up the stitching, you know, the rows that get sewn into the margins, so unseen. I have a pretty good sample of typical colors I use, though it always seems that there's never enough of the one I want for any particular project (especially cream, as I use that a lot for backgrounds).

Wish I had more space, but it looks like the situation is going to go the other way. I've got to move in the next couple of months (Cosmos help me), and those drawers are now going to be needed for pesky things, such as clothes.

I do have some clear plastic containers that will probably have to do, and go under the bed. Yuck. But the available space (and budget) is what is is.

I'm tellin' ya, if I win the lottery, my new house is going to have a huge bedroom just for my needlepointing and sewing supplies and activities.

How do YOU organize your yarns and other craft supplies?

Photoless Friday (02): DMC, or not to DMC, that is the question

I admit, it was perfectly by chance that I got started with the Paternayan brand of yarns. It must have been Paternayan, or something exactly like it, that was in the kit of my very first needlepoint project. Even without realizing it at first, I found the Paternayan yarns perfectly adapted to what I wanted:...More...


...

soft, resistant, (mostly) consistent in quality, and just the right size (about as big as a "typical" knitting yarn). Smaller, and it would take even more than it already takes (and it takes a long time, believe me). Larger, and to get any acceptable level of detail, the piece would have to be much bigger, so the working time would be the same, anyway. Finally, there is a very good range of colors in acceptable prices, and all the nearby needlepoint stores carried a good selection.

That was then, this is now.

No nearby stores, heck, no stores not even within the country borders, and so to the cost of any purchase would have to be added any postal costs (never negligible) and sometimes even import taxes. Not to mention the long wait (and risk of the package being...lightened, or even disappearing...during transit).

Having run out of a color, but almost done with a project, I tried substituting knitting yarn. No good. Not resistant enough. After a few pulls through the canvas, it weakens and breaks.

A round of my now local handwork stores later, and my needlepoint future is dark, indeed.

DMC yarns reign.

Nothing wrong with them, mind you. I've felt their woolen yarns, and they seem as soft and reliable as the Paternayan yarns.

So, what's the hubbub?

The DMC woolen yarns are either three times as thick as the Paternayan yarns, resulting forcedly in the must-work-on-an-enormous-canvas-to-get-any-acceptable-level-of-detail situation, or three times as thin, resulting in stitches so tiny that even an ant would have to put on magnifying glasses to work it.

That is, if this latter DMC thread even still exists.

I just looked at their web site. Their "normal" (i.e., thick) size of woolen yarn is called "Colbert." The really thin woolen yarn used to be called "Medici," but I can't find it in their list of yarns, so maybe it's gone the way of the wooly mammoth, replaced by all the fancy schmantsy glittery cotton threads (which I don't like, but for a whole other reason...and blog post).

So, for this Photoless Friday, my wish is that DMC would develop and market a slenderer woolen yarn like Paternayan's.

Just for me.

They'll do it, don't you think?