Like most of you, I do love my online yarn shopping. It’s convenient, the websites are very user-friendly, delivery is usually fast, online yarn shops regular send out great voucher codes and best of all you can do it from the comfort of our home.

This morning I decided to buy the yarn for one of the beautiful crochet and knitting tops in Marie Wallin’s latest book Filigree. She used Rowan 4-ply Summerlite so I thought I’d do the same. No substituting, no worry about getting the gauge right – all I had to do was decide what colour I want to use for Anemone.

I have two favourite online yarn shops: Deramores and Loveknitting, so that’s where I pointed my mouse, expecting to only have to compare the prices of their Rowan Summerlite.

Oh dear.  This was not going to be as easy as I thought. The shades of Rowan Summerlite on these two sites might as well have been two different brands, they were so different. The Pinched Pink shade immediately stood out for me, but for the wrong reasons.

On the Deramores site, this is what I saw. Pinched Pink is the colour in the big square. It looks like a muted orange-pink:

Here is Loveknitting‘s version of Rowan Summerlites shades with Pinched Pink as the main colour.  It looks fuchsia pink. Can this be the same yarn? Can it be the same shade? Apparently it is.  After reading this blogpost, Loveknitting have corrected the photographs they had on their website.

The correct shades are now showing on Loveknitting.com and they left a comment on this blogpost.

On Rowan’s own website this is what Pinched Pink looks like. This is much more of what I would have expected from a Rowan shade: muted and soft. Not even close to how Deramores or Loveknitting has photographed the shade:

I know we have to take into consideration computer resolution when looking at colours on a website, but I’m looking at these three website on my one laptop, so the differences are not in my screen resolution, it’s in the way the websites photographed the yarn.

I’m hesitant to make any colour decisions now that I’ve seen this. I was leaning towards Periwinkle or High Tide, but how can I be sure of what I’ll be getting? Go look for yourself the differences in High Tide on these three website. It’s quite shocking.

What would you do in this situation? It’s probably safest to use the Rowan colour chart to make my decision on what shade to buy. Or do it the old-fashioned way and just go to a bricks and mortar yarn shop.

Have you ever bought yarn online expecting one shade, only to find it looking totally different when it arrived?

I’m back from the weekend in Germany and boy did I have a great yarn experience!

I told you about my plan to visit the Schoppel-Wolle factory shop in this blogpost. I can now honestly say that this visit was the highlight of the whole trip!  

We arrived at the Schoppel-Wolle factory in Wallhausen just after 11am, eager for some heavy Mastercard action. The shop looked a bit quiet and dark when we rang the bell, but I didn’t think much of it. A lady come to the door only to give us the devastating news that the shop only opens at 2pm! I was so disappointed. I explained that we couldn’t come back at 2pm seeing as we have to drive down to Fussen. I think she could see the disappointment in my face. She asked whether I knew what I wanted to buy (as opposed to just leisurely browsing for no reason). As soon as I said “crazy zauberball” she opened the door for me! I almost kissed her! I had the whole shop for myself!! I am so grateful to the lady for taking pity on me. My day could have turned out so much differently if she hadn’t.

So, here I am shopping in the factory shop. I couldn’t stop smiling. The shop is floor to ceiling full of yarn. It’s heavenly! I was so happy I had to do a little happy jiggy. You’ll spot the photo with the jiggy easily…

From this blog I knew there was a discounted yarn area as well, but I didn’t want to ask the nice lady how to get there – I was just grateful to be in the full price shop! Luckily she came back into the main shop to switch on the light for the discounted yarn room. Aaaaaaahhhhh (I’m hearing angel voices as I recall that moment). Balls and balls of yarn at discounted prices! There’s that super excited, can’t control myself jiggy again.

Later, when I got back to the car (and off the yarnfumes high) I saw that the packets of yarn from the discounted area, are marked in groups. I’m not sure what the yarn groups mean, but from what I paid it looks like the higher the group number, the more expensive it is per gram, so I think it’s has something to do with yarn/colour quality.

I don’t mind what the reason is, I know the yarn will still be of excellent quality. Why do I know that? Because Hubby and I got a behind the scenes tour of the factory, lead by Mr. Gerhard Schoppel himself! During the tour we saw how the coloured wool is spun, steam treated, wound into balls and quality control done. It was brilliant! Considering I wasn’t even supposed to be in his shop, for him to then come out to our car just as we were about to leave to ask if we wanted a tour, was amazing!

I’m so glad I knew what I wanted to crochet with my yarn, otherwise I could very easily have bought everything in that factory, especially in the discounted yarn room. It was difficult to  choose, but I knew I had to be strict with myself, and I could always buy Schoppen-Wolle over the internet so I managed to (barely) restrain myself.

What I ended up buying was this:

A 150g ball of Admiral Starck 6 in Turkis, shade no. 4780 for €8.25. It’s DK (and my shawl is supposed to be done in Fingering) but I didn’t notice and I don’t care. This also the only full price yarn I bought.

Three balls (a total of 257g) Lace Ball in Brombeeren, shade no. 1872 for €5.14. This was marked Restegruppe 3.

Two balls (a total of 190g) Crazy Zauberball in Der Lenz Ist Da, shade no. 2136 for €9.50. This was marked Restegruppe 4.

Two balls (a total of 185g) Crazy Zauberball in Papegei, shade no. 1701 for €3.70. This was marked Restegruppe 3.

Bearing in mind that a full price 100g of Crazy Zauberball is €10, these were absolute bargains.

Schoppel-Wolle has a fan for life, and I haven’t even used the yarn yet! 

(I also came across yarn shops in Ulm and Tauberbischofsheim. The photos for these quick visits are on my Facebook page. After the Schoppel-Wolle experience I didn’t feel the need, or have the space in my luggage, for more purchases so there’s no blog post about those three shops. )

I bought more yarn. Again.  (It’s the “Dark Old Pink” in the photo below to crochet this tunic.)

I think I’m addicted, but I have no desire to recover from the addiction so I guess I’m just obsessed.

I’m okay with that.