Worsted weight means...

so many thing to so many people, apparently -

just in from Michael's, where I bought a mountain of yarn

for my 14 year old nieces' birthday sweaters, in colours of their choosing - they have both asked for Wonderful Wallabies, which is fine - I never get tired of seeing how the pouch gets knitted in to the body, and I've made maybe 10 over the years? - plus a couple of skeins of Paton's Classic Wool in variegated colours for felting (Tanya, those ones are your fault) -

anyhow, I was minding my own business, checking dye lot numbers, when I overheard an employee telling a woman that worsted weight means, and I quote, "You call pull really hard on the yarn and it won't break".

HUH?

I scraped my jaw up from the floor and listened as she asked and he again stated what seemed to him to be perfectly obvious. In a move completely out of character for me, I spoke up and said that no, in fact, in knitting, worsted weight refers to the weight or thickness of the yarn, and explained about gauge - "oh, that's what that little square on the label means", the woman said. We looked at the yarn she had chosen and found it to be bulky, which meant that her sweater would be much larger than shown in the pattern, and so on. By this time, there were 4 other women clustered around us with other questions, and I'm afraid the employee was not looking too happy.

I, on the other hand, was in my element.

So once all questions were answered and everyone was back to choosing yarn, I heard this guy, this employee, pipe up again and tell her that he was trained when he started to work in the yarn department, and so he actually knows what he's talking about, and she had the wrong kind of yarn (WORSTED WEIGHT Paton's Decor, perfect for a kid sweater, and exactly what the pattern was calling for) - I shot him the most venomous look I could muster - and I am pms'ing right now, so am amply supplied with venom - and left before I lost it completely.

I am now contemplating writing a letter to the management of this store, to inform them that their staff is ill-informed and therefore not much help to customers who need advice. I am just fuming. And I feel so sorry for this woman who has been misinformed - I mean, what if this leads to a bad knitting experience for her and she gives it up altogether? So thoroughly frustrating!

Vent over, resume normal programming -

in other news, my silk/sea cell "Lace Wings" shawl is lovely and I am looking forward to figuring out how and when to wear it...I had to put sheets of paper underneath, because brown shawl + brown couch = no details

I also forgot to mention that on Friday I received a lovely package from my SP8 hostess, Tammy -

I answered some questions for extra credit, and won myself a beautiful skein of blue Regia Loop Colour yarn - as Tammy said, you can never have enough sock yarn...

so there we are - another day in the life...