The Cost of Yarn

[Pixieglitter]

Cheri, say WHAT??? A hundred dollar for shipping? What a rip off! Like they say, "If it's too good to be true......"

[SusansSoulShines]

i know what you mean...i recently looked online for discount yarn venders. found Yarn-Paradise and thought i'd hit the jackpot! many types of yarn at ridiculously low prices, some for 25 cents a skein, some 33 cents a skein...you just had to buy in bulk. 4 to 8 skeins at a time. no problem! until you go to buy it and find the shipping and handling are where they make up the money.
they wanted almost $100.00 to send less than 6 pounds of yarn! needless to say i left the site without any yarn...:/

Where was it shipped from on yarn paradise cheri54? I looked at it but couldn't tell, and a search engine search said one of them was in turkey if I read it right! For online sales, prices is affected in some countries who have higher rates than others due to their location and 'ship to' destination. They pay import taxes on it too, and pass that fee on to the customer, depending on what country made / grew certain types of fibers.

They can't get Red Heart yarn in Australia, or any good yarn hardly at all and no good 4 ply, they don't weigh it by the same standards as we do really anyway, but they can order it online from America. And they end of paying dearly for most shipments of yarn from any place that's not near, and who knows what kind of import laws they have? We have some pretty good prices here in America compared to other countries, online and in stores.

One Australian designer ordered enough skeins of some kind of yarn for baby blanket for a best friend's gift, and the shipping for it was almost 100.00. But she had to the the yarn she needed for the gift. It was in her best interest as an online instructor to get involved with Red Heart, or any yarn company for that matter, to use on her video projects... she ordered a huge shipment of some Red Heart Super Saver and Super Soft when they had a 20% discount off, and when she got her shipment the boxes of it (she ordered 1-2 of almost every color they make) she held it up to the camera and showed the color up close and named each one. Now she obviously has some sort of arrangement with them based on what I've seen at the beginning her videos now, she mentions Red Heart and does a short sort of sales ad. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that of course, especially since she can't get good yarn any other way. I can't imagine all the yarn needed for lots of video tutorials. One online designer is in pretty good with Lion Brand, and some use whatever kind they can get to sponsor various projects, so it works for both the instructor and the yarn company.

Not a whole lot of yarn is actually from America, lots of labels are from Turkey, Italy & France I've noticed. I have 2 diff color &types of Red Heart here right now, one is a Super Saver & the label says 'Finished in U.S.A. of fiber from England - Coats and Clark - Greenville, S.C.,' which is where we're from and live, although we moved 15 miles south of downtown in May of this year and this small area is just out of the city limits and has a different name... I also don't know where the Coats & Clark mill is in Greenville, but would like to find out & see if they have an outlet store there! Most all textiles closed here over the past 30 years, and the mills are all now million dollar 'flats', with the original brick walls and fine wood floors, super high ceilings and tall windows, really nice... who'd have ever thought?! The textile capital of the world was right here in those very buildings in it's heyday. then everything went mechanized or moved overseas or just closed business down. Anyway... I have another Red Heart label here that is their Classic style says 'Made in the USA, Jacksonville,Fl.'... so was that fiber from the USA too? I don't know yet, but that sort of thing interests me. I learned a lot about this when gathering material for my blog.

I found this site with fantastic prices for the quantities you get but I wonder about shipping, as it's in Canada, but you might want to check it out. E-Tent | Yarn Factory Outlet They sell pink pins you wear that say 'The Crochet Crowd', and Mikey Sellick who started & owns the Crochet Crowd is in Canada, so they're somehow associated. I don't know how their shipping fees are to the U.S., but I'd be curious to know about shipping from this site to the U.S. so if anyone orders, let us know, ok?!

I know yall are talking more about local prices of mostly craft stores but I was leaning more towards the online shipping just as a point of interest... I guess I was blogging, sorry, force of habit...

[MeerKat]

I haven't bought any yarn in the past year and can't believe how much it has went up. I use to buy a lot from Hershnerrs when they have there sales. But haven't even looked at their prices lately. I have a large stash of yarn so, I am not worried to much yet. I just moved from IL to Ga, and cannot find my crochet hooks anywhere. But still have a lot of Boxes to unpack and hate to have to replace them all.

[Rogue Hobbies]

You can use more than one coupon at Joann's. You can also use, besides just Joann's coupons there, 1 Michael's AND 1 Hobby Lobby coupon in the same purchase if you have enough items that qualify {like 40% off one item type of coupon etc.}. All you need to do is go online to find those, usually Saturday and Sunday {pre- and post-holidays} are the best days to look online for their coupons. Just go to their sites and print off a coupon, or just write down the bar codes and what they are and which store they're from on a piece of paper if you can't print them. If you have a smart phone, you can pull the bar codes up on your phone and they can scan the bar code on the phone so you don't even need paper at all. I've got $50 worth of yarn one time for only $20 using a bunch of coupons when things were on sale. Joann's doesn't always have the type of yarn I need, but I try to keep my projects to yarn I can get from there because they savings are so worth it!

[Rogue Hobbies]

Where was it shipped from on yarn paradise cheri54? I looked at it but couldn't tell, and a search engine search said one of them was in turkey if I read it right! For online sales, prices is affected in some countries who have higher rates than others due to their location and 'ship to' destination. They pay import taxes on it too, and pass that fee on to the customer, depending on what country made / grew certain types of fibers.

They can't get Red Heart yarn in Australia, or any good yarn hardly at all and no good 4 ply, they don't weigh it by the same standards as we do really anyway, but they can order it online from America. And they end of paying dearly for most shipments of yarn from any place that's not near, and who knows what kind of import laws they have? We have some pretty good prices here in America compared to other countries, online and in stores.

One Australian designer ordered enough skeins of some kind of yarn for baby blanket for a best friend's gift, and the shipping for it was almost 100.00. But she had to the the yarn she needed for the gift. It was in her best interest as an online instructor to get involved with Red Heart, or any yarn company for that matter, to use on her video projects... she ordered a huge shipment of some Red Heart Super Saver and Super Soft when they had a 20% discount off, and when she got her shipment the boxes of it (she ordered 1-2 of almost every color they make) she held it up to the camera and showed the color up close and named each one. Now she obviously has some sort of arrangement with them based on what I've seen at the beginning her videos now, she mentions Red Heart and does a short sort of sales ad. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that of course, especially since she can't get good yarn any other way. I can't imagine all the yarn needed for lots of video tutorials. One online designer is in pretty good with Lion Brand, and some use whatever kind they can get to sponsor various projects, so it works for both the instructor and the yarn company.

Not a whole lot of yarn is actually from America, lots of labels are from Turkey, Italy & France I've noticed. I have 2 diff color &types of Red Heart here right now, one is a Super Saver & the label says 'Finished in U.S.A. of fiber from England - Coats and Clark - Greenville, S.C.,' which is where we're from and live, although we moved 15 miles south of downtown in May of this year and this small area is just out of the city limits and has a different name... I also don't know where the Coats & Clark mill is in Greenville, but would like to find out & see if they have an outlet store there! Most all textiles closed here over the past 30 years, and the mills are all now million dollar 'flats', with the original brick walls and fine wood floors, super high ceilings and tall windows, really nice... who'd have ever thought?! The textile capital of the world was right here in those very buildings in it's heyday. then everything went mechanized or moved overseas or just closed business down. Anyway... I have another Red Heart label here that is their Classic style says 'Made in the USA, Jacksonville,Fl.'... so was that fiber from the USA too? I don't know yet, but that sort of thing interests me. I learned a lot about this when gathering material for my blog.

I found this site with fantastic prices for the quantities you get but I wonder about shipping, as it's in Canada, but you might want to check it out. E-Tent | Yarn Factory Outlet They sell pink pins you wear that say 'The Crochet Crowd', and Mikey Sellick who started & owns the Crochet Crowd is in Canada, so they're somehow associated. I don't know how their shipping fees are to the U.S., but I'd be curious to know about shipping from this site to the U.S. so if anyone orders, let us know, ok?!

I know yall are talking more about local prices of mostly craft stores but I was leaning more towards the online shipping just as a point of interest...

The E-Tent shipping is $10.95 for $52 worth of yarn, all you have to do is add something to your cart, fill out your address info, and it calculates shipping before you even add in your credit card info. $14.95 shipping for $112 worth of yarn.... I'm thinking shipping is a minimum of $8.95, because $4 worth of yarn is $8.95 still, so it seems for every $50 it might go up a bit. Hope this helps with ideas!

[SusansSoulShines]

The E-Tent shipping is $10.95 for $52 worth of yarn, all you have to do is add something to your cart, fill out your address info, and it calculates shipping before you even add in your credit card info. $14.95 shipping for $112 worth of yarn.... I'm thinking shipping is a minimum of $8.95, because $4 worth of yarn is $8.95 still, so it seems for every $50 it might go up a bit. Hope this helps with ideas!

Thx Rogue hobbies! That's good shipping, and their prices are so low. I didn't expect it to be good yarn since it said discontinued but it also said they get new stock in daily, and it is good yarn.

[SusansSoulShines]

You can use more than one coupon at Joann's. You can also use, besides just Joann's coupons there, 1 Michael's AND 1 Hobby Lobby coupon in the same purchase if you have enough items that qualify {like 40% off one item type of coupon etc.}. All you need to do is go online to find those, usually Saturday and Sunday {pre- and post-holidays} are the best days to look online for their coupons. Just go to their sites and print off a coupon, or just write down the bar codes and what they are and which store they're from on a piece of paper if you can't print them. If you have a smart phone, you can pull the bar codes up on your phone and they can scan the bar code on the phone so you don't even need paper at all. I've got $50 worth of yarn one time for only $20 using a bunch of coupons when things were on sale. Joann's doesn't always have the type of yarn I need, but I try to keep my projects to yarn I can get from there because they savings are so worth it!

FYI, if you're on the emailing list from these stores, they'll send you a current coupon by email every time a new dated one comes out.

[AudreyL]

Right now are Wal-Mart has the jumbo super saver for $4.97 so I have been buying some and A.C.Moore I having a good sale. I was just there yesterday

[LI Roe]

I stopped at my local Goodwill and today they had seven skeins of Lion Brand Homespun for 79 cents each (71 cents after the discount). I am not a big fan of it on the whole but one skein makes up a nice scarf so for less than $5 I can do seven scarves for outreaches and shelters. And occasionally I have seen RH Jumbo at $4.97 also in Walmart, limited colors but a great deal nonetheless. AC Moore sells it for $7.99 (and if I have a 50% or 40% coupon, that makes it even better).

Roe

[WabashWoman]

I have the same issue here in Canada with yarn prices. I live in a small city and we have Walmart and their price and selection is not the best. The only other store is a specialty shop called The Little Red Mitten which is very expensive and even their needles and hooks are high end prices. I do check thrift stores and such but so does everyone else it seems. So yarn disappears quickly. I have some stash downstairs but sometimes just need some new colour or pattern to change this up.