Read on Twitter
Ugh so just now I’m learning that @BristolIvy ‘s thread I RTed was part of a whole “conversation” that’s happening (mostly on Instagram) and I feel like I should comment, even though the entire discussion seems like a waste of energy. Get ready, it’s thread time. https://twitter.com/kariebookish/status/1284473240648376320
First of all, the sweater that started the whole thing, I’ve seen exactly one photo of the main sample and I can tell you: it would work very nicely and have a similar look using Knit Picks Wool of the Andes as the main yarn and KP Chroma as the contrasting. There, yarn sub done.
So I know I’m better at yarn subbing than a lot of knitters, but I think figuring out what yarn you want to use in your project is 1) a super fun part of the project, and 2) a key part of being a knitter, a skill to develop as you develop all your other knitting skills.
I know a lot of knitters just use the recommended yarn, I know that’s true, but I don’t think it should be true. I honestly don’t understand WHY that’s true, but oh boy there are a lot of things about other people that I don’t understand. That’s another topic for another day.
Anyway, I don’t understand why this conversation is about designers needing to offer yarn substitutions in their patterns instead of about helping knitters decide what yarns they want to use in their projects.
If all this energy were put into blog posts /threads/stories with lists of price-accessible yarns and their qualities, how to recycle yarn, online shops where you can buy recycled yarn or destash/discount yarn, etc, then this conversation could help people.
Expecting designers to break agreements with yarn companies, hurt relationships and their prospects at future yarn support…this industry is hard enough to work in, yarn support is one of the ways designers have to make it a liiiittle more financially viable to design at all.
Often, conditions of yarn support are that substitute yarns cannot be listed in the pattern. (I DO agree that is nice to say weight/fiber content to help w/subbing.) Anyway there are other things that @BristolIvy said in her thread that factor in too. This thread is getting long!
I wanted to say something though, as someone who has designed tons of patterns with many different yarns/samples, written a whole ebook about how to make recycled yarn, designed a collection in recycled yarns, and now works for one of the big affordable yarn companies,…
…yes I obviously care very much about knitting being accessible to anyone who wants to knit, regardless of their income. I also don’t think designers doing the yarn sub work is the thing to expect/demand here.
My design career was not sustainable. I believe there were many factors but probably one of those factors was that I DID give samples in many yarns/versions. This made my patterns extra long & complex; they appeal to a small niche of knitters and not much at all to most knitters.
I also did not build good yarn-support relationships with many yarnies because of this. Big 
to the ones who gave me support despite my many-sample practices.
If you want more designers to be more like me, well, you want more designers to not make a living at it, honestly.
to the ones who gave me support despite my many-sample practices.If you want more designers to be more like me, well, you want more designers to not make a living at it, honestly.
