Tag Archives: spinrite

Changes Out There

Posted on by
4

This week sees some more changes in the world of makers like me. I’m not in the States but was saddened to see Joann’s Fabric stores closing there recently. There’s nothing like a local store to finger fabrics, and pick up notions.

This week, there are two more changes. One is more local to me. The Spinrite factory in Listowel Ontario is closing down. It’s been there over seventy years and the retail store is a great place for mill ends and sales. They haven’t been spinning yarn there for a while, but they ball-and-band yarns for Patons, Bernat, Red Heart and various store brands (like Michaels). Their annual tent sale is a huge summer event. I like to drive up there (or have the mister drive me) when I’m thinking. It’s a lovely drive through farmland with yarn at the end. I will miss it.

Here’s an article in the Kitchener paper about the closure.

The second big change was announced yesterday – the parent company of the big four pattern brands (Simplicity, Butterick, Vogue and McCalls) was sold to a liquidator. It’s the same company that liquidated Joann’s. Curiously, it seems that the impact of tariffs on sewing product brands owned by the parent (Wrights trims and Boye needles, for example) was a driving factor in the decision, as well as the loss of distribution with the closure of Joann’s in the US. It seemed that they were struggling with the shift to digital in recent years, but it’s sad to see them go.

Here’s the article.

What happens from here? Are we shifting to smaller companies and boutique suppliers, or are we becoming a society of people who don’t make things themselves? I know which option I prefer. I’m not sure who I’d be if I wasn’t always making something.

I also feel vindicated for having my various stashes. If this is the apocalypse for makers, I’m all stocked up.

Red Heart Gemstone

Posted on by
Reply

Last week, on a beautiful sunny day, I drove up to Spinrite. Spinrite is in Listowel, Ontario. It’s a former mill for Patons, and has an outlet store. I don’t know how much yarn they spin there anymore – it seems that mostly they ball and band yarn for Patons, Bernat, Caron, Red Heart, Sugar Bush and other brands owned by Coats, which owns the mill. (You can see their yarns on the Yarnspirations site.) The outlet store has first quality yarns – mostly Patons and Bernat – for sale, as well as a lot of seconds and discontinued yarns/colours. I’ve bought a lot of seconds there over the years and quite often the issue is the weight of the ball: it’s too big or too small. One of the ladies there told me that these balls are the result of setting up the balling machines. They also stock an excellent range of needles in the brand I like (Prym) so when I need needles, I’ll often go up there and have a poke around the seconds bins while I’m there.

I found three balls that looked interesting on the seconds table on that last visit. Part of the fun (for me) is figuring out what the seconds yarns are. They don’t have bands, although they’re broadly separated by fiber – there’s a table for acrylic (although some blends slide in there) and one for cottons. The wool is usually in a box under one table since the ladies separate it out as they’re adding yarn to the tables. These three balls were all the same type of yarn – it was a marl spun of two gradient plies, bulky weight, a big ball and probably acrylic. I couldn’t find it in the store, but found it on the website when I got home.Seconds of Red Heart Gemstone

As if often the case, the colours are a bit off in the image. The red is much richer and deeper (for some reason, red always skews pink in pictures with this camera) and the mauve is deeper, too. The colour of the bottom ball is pretty true. It’s Red Heart Gemstone, which should be a 200g ball. These balls are all between 140g and 145g. I’m guessing that these colourways are Amethyst, Fire Agate and Flourite.

You can see that I’ve already knit one mitten from the Flourite. The second one isn’t going to match perfectly, which is making me twitch a bit (but not enough to break the yarn and discard this rosy section.) Mittens are my comfort knitting. I like knitting mittens when I’m thinking about other things because I don’t have to think about my knitting much. Also, mittens are finished faster than socks, especially when I use a bulky yarn like this one. I often to use an old Patons pattern, but it’s for worsted weight yarn. A couple of years ago, I found this fabulous pattern on Ravelry – The World’s Simplest Mittens by Tin Can Knits. This pattern has instructions for basic mittens in five sizes in four weights of yarn (fingering, DK, worsted and bulky). It’s a good clear pattern and it’s free. Here’s the Ravelry link and here’s the Tin Can Knits website.

Here are the first of my mittens:

If you’re interested in visiting Spinrite, you can find more information about the store and their tent sales, as well as directions, on their website right here. You can see the mill from the store, but I don’t think they offer tours. The stock of seconds and discontinued yarns changes all the time, so you never know what you’re going to find. That’s part of the adventure.