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Tuesday, November 14, 2006

the fee for getting my life back


First of all, I want to say thank you, thank you to all of you who offered to check their local yarn stores for me. It's so nice to know that there are so many fellow knitters who are willing to help a knitter in need. If you ever need me to scope out some yarn for you, just let me know and I'd be so happy to return the favor.

I have learned some things about the Trekking 126 that I have been coveting: the last bag from the distributor was sent to Abundant Yarn and they sold out of it very quickly; lots of knitters have blasted yarn stores with no on-line presence with emails and phone calls (yes, I am one of these knitters), so even those stores are sold-out; and Skacel is not planning on reissuing this colorway.

This is the heartbreaking email I received from Skacel:

"There is no replacement for Trekking 126, however Trekking color 12 is very pretty similar. "

Hmm...I think this Skacel representative meant to write "Trekking color 128." Lee, my Hotsocks swap spoiler, managed to find a lot of 127 when she was looking for 126, but no 126.

There were three balls of 126 on eBay in the past few weeks. (The person selling them also got them on eBay; she got all three of them for like $13!!!!) The first ball went for over $40 and the second went for about $19. The third went to....................................ME!!!

I paid more than retail for it. It ended up going for $26 plus $5 shipping; however, I have purchased Trekking for $17 retail, and the extra $$$ I'll just consider the fee for getting my life back. Yes, I have been spending too much time trying to track down this yarn. Now I can get back to knitting and cleaning and, oh yes, there is that prospectus that didn't go over too well with my advisor.

A very nice knitter offered to swap her 126 with me for two skeins of Koigu or something very "tempting." Considering that two skeins of Koigu would cost about $24, another yarn purchase to make the offer extra "tempting" would cost about $20, and shipping it would cost another $5, I would say that I made out pretty well getting the 126 from the eBay auction.

Now that I have my life back, I am in a rush to get my holiday knitting done. I have several socks planned.

What you're seeing in the photo above are socks for my mother's birthday, which is just a few days before Christmas. The yarn is the Koigu that I purchased about a month ago.


Here are some skeins of Koigu that I'll be using for other socks. The Koigu knits up pretty quickly and the colors are so vibrant and beautiful that I am always so happy when I'm knitting.

10 comments:

Gingersnaps with Tea... said...

Glad you have solved your Trekking 126 dilemma. Being obessed with socks in general, gotta say your Mom's socks are great! Very cool. Just got my first skeins of Koigu--looking forward to trying it.

Lazuli said...

What pretty Koigu!! I'm glad you found the Trekking. Good luck with that prospectus!

Anonymous said...

Haven't had a chance to knit with Koigu just yet...but it looks so pretty! Wonderful socks for your mom...I think she will love them.

Anonymous said...

Score! Personally, I think anything under $100 is perfectly reasonable if it brings you much-needed sanity and something happy in a time of unhappy writing. I was actually just thinking of you tonight and wondering how it was all going. If it makes you feel better, I had to rewrite my prospectus three times (not revise, rewrite... as in chuck the topic and start over from scratch) and even then I think my advisor just got tired of reading it so he accepted the fourth draft. I know the 'hang in there' advice is lame, so, uh, just knit more socks!

Anonymous said...

Wow! Sounds like quite a frustration trying to track down that yarn! Glad you managed to track it down. :-)

LOVE the Koigu shots. Those will make really nice socks. Mmmmmm....Koigu...*drool*
Best of luck with the prospectus!!

Unknown said...

That top shade of Koigu is beautiful! Love it. Nice to hear you got your Trekking. Cinnamon rolls are going fast, better hurry if you're going to have one...

Kyra said...

Yay you! I'm going to refund your shipping charges since I didn't get your yarn out to you on the day you paid. So, you actually will get a better deal than you thought! :o)

Happy Trekking 126 Knitting!

msubulldog said...

Wow, so glad to hear your Trekking misery had a happy ending! I finally got your Mystery Sock prize in the mail today--you should have it early next week! :)
--Amanda

Anonymous said...

Getting your life back is ALWAYS a good thing, and usually well worth the price ;-) Enjoy your much sought after Trekking!

MMMMMMM - lovely colors in those koigu yarns!!

The A.D.D. Knitter said...

Wow what a harrowing tale! SO glad it turned out ok and I agree that EBAY was the way to go...I have that exact colourway of Koigu (the blue one) and it's on my list of socks to make. You are awfully kind to make socks for people this Christmas--I'm sticking to hats!!