The Perils of Ruffle Yarn

One of the things I brought along on the Russia trip (see the archived posts during late June and early July) was several balls of ruffle yarn. Knitting is a good way to pass the time on plane rides, bus rides, waiting in museum lines, etc. Five balls of yarn, all from the same manufacturer, intended to be five scarves. The first four knit up very nicely, and got a lot of attention from my fellow passengers.

About a yard into the fifth ball, I came to a place where the mesh [ribbon? tape?] of the yarn had a split in the middle, which would spoil the scarf. By a coincidence, I had a kit of emergency sewing supplies containing matching thread with me, so with needle and thread I mended the hole. Another few rows of knitting, another split in the yarn, mended. Again, another few rows, another split, mended. When I discovered the fourth split a little later, this one almost 4 inches in length, I lost my patience and decided to put the knitting away until I could get home and tell the retailer by phone how unhappy I was with their product.

You can see the 4-inch split in the upper right corner of this photo; it looked to me as if the machine that creates the mesh got the hiccups at regular intervals - I could see loose loops of thread in edges of the split.



When I phoned Webs, nice people that they are, they promised to send a replacement ball at no cost. It arrived here last week, and yesterday I examined every inch of the mesh to make sure it was intact; thankfully, it's only 44 yards per ball. Hurrah - this one's in good shape! Knitting can begin!