Are you worried about how much your knitting habit costs? More to the point, are your spouses/parents/children/friends worried? Do you find yourself trying to explain away the boxes of expensive hand-dyed artisan yarn, beautifully-tooled exotic wood knitting needles, shelves full of pattern books, trips to wool festivals, etc? Then this post is for you!
Yesterday I received a promotional email for Selfridge’s (a department store) advertising “seriously smiley knitwear”. “Hmm,” I thought, “Let’s check out this season’s designer knitwear!” It made me happy! I was especially happy to see the prices! (Prices were quoted in pounds sterling; I have given US$ equivalents at today’s exchange rates. The photos are from Selfridge’s webpages.
1. Rag & Bone (£495; $650)
2. Altuzarra (£950; $1,247)
3. Balenciaga (£815; $1,069)
4. A F Vandevorst (£800; $1,050)
5. Alexander McQueen (£840; $1,102)
6. Calvin Klein (£900; $1,180)
7. Thom Browne (£1,160; £1522 – this one is sold out!)
My oh my! We have two things to cheer about fellow knitters!
1 – RED!!!!! Just because.
2 – The magic all-purpose reason why your knitting habit is cost-effective! (“But you know, honey, that by knitting this 100% cashmere chunky turtleneck, I am saving around £500 on yarn costs alone! We should definitely be drinking some champagne while I knit to celebrate my thriftiness, darling! Even better, we should be drinking it in Fiji!”)
Cute! It is easy to justify just about anything! In my house, though, my hubby is the enabler, so all is well here!
Actually my husband enables me, too! (He takes most of the photos on this blog, so you can see he is enabling me big time!) For my part, I enable his guitar habit.
This is so funny that I should be reading this while watching Selfridges Netflix show 🤣 but indeed prices are 😅
I didn’t know there was a Selfridges Netflix show. I am off to investigate….
Gosh, those knits are so overpriced, they’re not even that special in my opinion… And I would be curious to check the material composition, I bet not pure wool 🙂
Thanks for sharing! A(nother) good reason to buy yarn 😉
I must say that I would buy the Alexander McQueen or the Balanciaga if I lived in an alternate universe in which I had that kind of cash! (And in which I were thin.) These appear to be made in the finest wools and cashmeres; they still cost way more than it would to buy the yarn. (Which is not usually the case, as I find knitting a sweater is not the cheap option in general.)
This is why, whenever someone offers to pay me to knit a sweater I always say, “you can’t afford my knitting in retail prices.” This made me laugh, and also consider buying more yarn because every time I buy some, I’m saving serious money!
I like the way you think, Tony; proving that we are examples of logic operating on a higher plane!
thanks for helping explain the money I have been saving!
I like the way you think! Some of those are very nice (but not for the price or even half the price). And then on the other hand, I knit basic hats for donations using acrylic yarn. I then see something similar in Target for $5. I inspect them and see the same 2×2 ribbing that I use, etc. To just buy a skein of the yarn is almost $5.
lmao!! I am rethinking those 2 skeins of $215. EACH (per skein) handspun which I passed up yesterday!! Thanks for a fun post!!
forgot to mention the $215. handspun is 100% hand-dyed cashmere. Does that make more sense? : )
Perfect sense!
Perfect 🖒😊
Thank you for alleviating my guilt! I’m off to the yarn shop 🙂
So am I! 😉
#6!!!!! Over a thousand dollars. And it’s wool blend!!!
(BTW, for money saving, I’ve declared that frogging cuts the price in half, and you get a twofer from the yarn. Because it really is about the knitting.)
woooow!!!!! i love your post, thanks soooooo much!!!!
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