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To Review, or not to Review?

So, I’ve been struggling with something for a couple of weeks now.  Well, actually, struggling with two things.  The first is a shawl.  I agreed to knit a shawl as a shop sample for my LYS.  The shawl is a large, square Shetland-style job, except it’s knit from the center outward, rather than edge-body-edge-edge-edge.  So, it’s a much simpler design, and satisfies my need for as few picked-up stitches, seams, and grafts as possible.  The large size wasn’t the problem; I am what you might call a speedy knitter, and can make it through large projects fairly quickly.

The problem was the yarn.  I knit the shawl with the yarn that the pattern suggested; it’s a kettle-dyed blend of alpaca, Merino, and bamboo, and feels lovely to the touch.  When I put the first skein on my swift and ball winder, I was happy with the feel and drape of the yarn.  However, after the first ball was wound, and I looked at my blue hands, I was a bit put off.  After winding the sixth ball, and my hands becoming bluer each time, I was darn peeved.

Then, I started knitting.  Each time I sat down to knit on this shawl, it was no time before my fingers and knitting needles were blue.  And this isn’t a good thing.  Since I work in a yarn shop, I can’t walk around with blue dye on my hands while touching all of our products.  Which means that I couldn’t pick up the knitting during breaks or during lunch, and so lost much potential knitting time.

Then, there were two skeins that each had about a two foot section of more loosely spun fiber.  I didn’t think much of it the first time I came to one, and just kept knitting as usual.  Then, to my utter horror, after finishing that skein and starting another one, the loosely spun section shredded!  I couldn’t believe it.  About a foot of a row just fell apart, and I was left with a gaping hole about six inches below my current row.  So I had to frog and reknit a huge section of a huge shawl.  When I came to a second loosely spun section, I cut it out and continued on my way.

So this brings me to my second struggle.  Do I blog an honest review of the particular yarn, or simply avoid mentioning it?  I’ve never given anything a negative review before, because I’ve always felt that if you don’t have something nice to say, keep yer gab shut.  But I also understand that honest feedback about products is one of the biggest benefits of blogging specifically, and the massive information sharing interwebs in general.  Any thoughts on the subject?

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