Pretentiousness with a twist

There are many ways in which I am rather pretentious. I use the word "rather" with a particular frequency, for instance. I'm not sure that attending a small elitist liberal arts college or spending the subsequent year in France, cradle of haughtiness, have helped this tendency of mine, but now that I'm back in the humble Upper South US, I can't just go on talking about obscure literary theorists and high-class cheeses. Most of the time, I try to keep my snobbery under wraps, in the name of politeness and being a real human being.

On the other hand, there is one place I glory in my preference for things high-end and obscure, and that's at the local yarn shop. Sure, I'm still something of a yarn novice. Sure, I started on Red Heart like every other chump. But now I'm aware there's a bigger, better world outside of Hobby Lobby eyelash yarn. Cashmerinos! Aran tweeds! Big fat fluffy wools! Bamboo yarn, even, gorgeous and slippery. Yes, it's a whole wide world of texture and color out there once you get past semi-self-striping acrylics.

Not only are there a lot of different fibers (alpaca, cotton, various wools, silks, and the unlikely but lovely bamboo, among others), but there are so many different weights of yarn. I've petted wools that will give you one stitch per inch on needles the side of magic markers, and laceweight wools that knit up airy as anything on even the smallest needles. Some yarns are plyed, others semi-felted to begin with. I've gone back occasionally to the lingering generic acrylics in my stash, but there's just so much less you can do with them. They don't felt. There's no interesting variation on the color. Lots of them don't even have dye lots, much less fascinating textures like my anonymous green stuff, twisted together from several different colors with some incredible slubs, or the small remainder of Mango Moon in my bag, made from recycled saris. It's kind of like drinking instant coffee for years and then one day walking into a Starbucks (or equivalent, more delicious independent coffeeshop). You never really want to go back. And each skein has a story that way. "Oh, I picked that up in a little place in the smallest town you ever saw." "This? It's from that amazing yarn superstore. And that one was a gift/inheritance/piece of booty."

I have to say, I'm glad to be a part of it. So go on, ask me about my yarn.