I'm so very much excited to announce that I received my Yarnbox Classic today! I would like to thank my hubby for this box. He bought me the subscription when I was feeling down in hopes that it would cheer me up. *hugs*
This is my very first Yarnbox so I'll let you know my first impressions of the service and what I think of the value of the box itself.
So Yarnbox is a monthly subscription service that sends quality artisanal yarns to your doorstep. Included in every box is at least 2 skeins of yarn as well as patterns that you can knit or crochet (depending on craft preference).
The thing that I found wonderful is that Yarnbox has you fill out a questionnaire about your crafting and color preferences. They won't send you certain colors if you ask them not to. You can even select if you don't want to work with lace weight or bulky yarns. I kept my profile open for the most part. I did tell them that my main craft is knitting, I like all colors, and I don't like working with bulky yarn (I prefer delicate work and intricate patterns).
The box itself costs $39.95 for Yarnbox Classic (my membership), however, they are expanding and have many other boxes of yarn you can subscribe to depending on what you are looking for.
For $19.95 you can subscribe to Yarnbox Socks which will get you a sock pattern and 1-2 skeins of sock yarn (always enough to complete the project).
For $54.95 you can get the Yarnbox Plus Artyarns that ships quarterly with Artyarn Yarn and patterns from Iris Schreier.
For $69.95 you can subscribe to the Yarnbox Luxe that ships every 3 months with luxury yarns that will make any knitter squeal for joy.
The only downside to these last three options is that they don't include the cost of shipping whereas the Yarnbox Classic does. So take that into consideration when purchasing!
So, shall we take a peek into the box?
I was immediately excited when I saw a bit of sky blue peeking out at me! Such a bright color and fun to work with. Not to mention it goes great with my skin tone!
Here we have it! A gorgeous variegated sky blue to dusky purple fingering yarn by Ancient Arts Fibre Crafts. This squish-able luxury is made of 70% Superwash Merino, 20% Bamboo, and 10% Nylon and is a 3 ply yarn that has 410 yards in each skein. The color Yarnbox sent me is called Scottish Mist.
I have to say that I'm in love with this particular yarn. The bamboo gives it some silken luxury, the merino gives it warmth and bounce, and the nylon gives it durability. and even though I tried to catch the color several times, the camera does not do the blue in this any justice. Its bright like the bluest sky you've ever seen (yes, that blue!)
So I decided to find out a bit about Ancient Arts Fibre Crafts and hopped on over to their webpage to investigate. The first thing that stood out (and slightly confused me until I read a little bit) was their yarn was listed as Meow Yarn and Woof Yarn. It appears that this company is one with a soul! (I'm finding quite a few of those as of late)
Ancient Arts Fibre Crafts donates part of the proceeds of these yarns to help out stray cats and dogs. The charity they donate to is called the Best Friends Animal Society. How cool is that?! You can get your fiber fix on and help out a furry friend as well.
Now, as far as a value evaluation for the box. Each skein of yarn has a retail value of $27 per skein according to the Ancient Arts website. So for both of these skeins it would have cost $54! Not bad for the $40 that was paid for this box. But wait!!! I haven't even gone over the patterns that your receive with the box.
The knitting pattern for the Fingering yarn was Pas de Chale Wrap by Linda Browning. Which retails for $1.99 on the Ravelry website.
The Crochet pattern for Fingering was the Tide Wrap by April Garwood. I couldn't find the retail value because this appears to be a new pattern. Keeping that in mind April Garwood sells her patterns for about $3-4 so that will be the value I assign to this one.
The DK weight knitting pattern included is called the Honeycomb Mobius Cowl by Caroline Sommerfeld. This pattern retails for $7 Canadian or $5.70 USD.
The DK weight crochet pattern is called the Miranda Vest by Carolyn Carleton. This pattern retails for $5 Canadian or $4.17 USD.
So taking all the patterns into account (even though I don't crochet), this Yarnbox has a total retail value of $69.86 USD. Not a bad value at all! I am quite happy with this box.
Now just to let you know I'm SUPER CRAZY picky about my patterns. So I don't think I will be using any of these in the future but I was happy with the value of the yarn alone.
I would love to see Yarnbox pair up with some more notorious designers in the future, only time will tell!
Continue to be kind to thyselves this weekend!
Jeanette
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