Five Most Practical Tips for Ordering Yarn Online | Podcast Episode #123

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Are you hesitant to order yarn online because you need to see and feel it first?

I’ll be honest, I love the “thrill of the hunt” – going to a store like Joann’s or Michael’s not knowing what I’m going to find. You just can’t get the same tactile experience when ordering yarn online. But sometimes it’s something we have to do.

Have you ever ordered yarn online and it wasn’t the right color? Or even worse, the texture wasn’t what you expected? You’re not alone here. I lost track in the double digits! There are so many variables potentially working against us when we order yarn online. Today I’ll share five tips for the next time you order yarn online so you’re hopefully less disappointed or surprised when your package arrives.

Episode Transcript

Brittany:
You’re listening to The BHooked Podcast, episode 123, with Brittany. Well, hello there and welcome to episode 123 of the Be Hooked podcast. And also happy 4th of July if you celebrate and if you’re listening on the day this episode is published.

Now we’re still continuing with our yarn mini-series. We’re moving into episode two of that series where I’m answering some of the most common questions I hear about yarn. So whether you’re brand new to the show or a long-time listener, first of all, I just want to thank you for tuning into this episode. As someone who really values time and how it’s spent, I really do appreciate your choice to spend some time with me today. This is something I definitely don’t take lightly.

Okay, so as you heard, today we’re going to address some issues that come up with ordering yarn online and how you can make the best choice so you’re less likely to be disappointed or surprised with what arrives in the mail. I want to say first off, I’m not trying to sell you on the idea of ordering yarn online. I know that purchasing yarn is a tactile process. We like to see it. We like to feel it and touch it and squish it. And those things are really what guide a lot of my decisions in whether or not I’m purchasing a yarn.

Sometimes I’ll see a yarn and it will just scream a specific project. For example, one time I found this yarn that was so unique. It was sort of two-plied. The middle of it was a smooth, sort of like an off-white color yarn, and then it had all of these like dark green fuzzies coming out of it. And when I saw that yarn, I instantly saw Oscar the Grouch. And my nephew at the time was just over a year old, and I just thought it would be perfect for him.

You’re not going to get a lot of that by ordering yarn online, but to be honest, sometimes we have to. Maybe you don’t live in an area where you have a lot of yarn stores or a lot of different options. Here, I’m pretty fortunate. We do have some bigger named craft stores. We have Michael’s, we have Joann’s, we have Hobby Lobby. Those are the three big ones, and they’re pretty close to my house here. So I could really go anytime I want to, but that might not be the case for you. Or perhaps maybe you’re working with another brand, with a yarn brand, and you need to order the yarn as a part of that contract with them from their website.

So there are instances where ordering yarn online is the best way to go. And when you find yourself in that situation, I have five tips for you today. And gosh, I feel like I could elaborate on this even more, but I want to keep it to five today. I don’t want to overwhelm you. on how you can make sure that you’re getting exactly what you expect.

Now, I have to be honest, I order yarn online. I don’t always love to order yarn online. I do love parts about it, and I’ll get to those later, but really, I love the hunt. I love walking into a store and not knowing what I’m going to find. If maybe my store has cycled through some of the newer yarns that are available, that doesn’t always happen. So when it does, it’s really exciting. And I typically will end up with a giant bag full of new yarns that I might not have a project idea for, but because it was new and it was there and I could buy it, I did.

Well, nowadays, I don’t schedule regular yarn runs, but when I used to work a regular full-time job, I would typically get off work a half hour to maybe an hour before my husband sometimes, and that gave me just enough time to sit in traffic, and then make a quick stop at the yarn store. So I would go to work that morning. I would think about yarn all day and what I was going to buy or what I was going to find. And then as soon as 4.30 rolled around, I would run to my car and go to the stores.

And it sort of became a little bit of a game. Can I run into both Hobby Lobby and Joann’s because they were right next to each other in this short amount of time that I had so that I could be home before my husband got home? I made a habit of doing this two or three times a month, and I really did enjoy it. Sometimes I had a project in mind, but in almost all instances, I didn’t know what I was looking for exactly. I was going in there with maybe an idea, maybe no idea at all, but I always knew it when I saw it. That’s the thrill of the hunt for me. That’s why I love shopping for yarn in stores.

Aside from the fact that you can touch it and feel it and see the true colors, how they actually look, you can read the yarn label. It’s just so much easier, right, when you have something in your hand. And that really brings up the first issue with ordering online. What if you don’t know what you’re looking for until you see it?

Now, I have to be honest, I haven’t come up with a perfect solution for this because I don’t think you can fully remove that aspect of buying yarn from the equation. It’s always going to be better if we can see it or feel it or know exactly what we’re getting when we purchase, right? So it wasn’t that I just suddenly found the same thrill shopping for yarn online. That’s definitely not the case. Or that I just didn’t love hunting for the perfect yarn anymore because that didn’t happen either. I still love that.

It was something different that made me okay with ordering yarn online for most of my purchases and sort of became a habit for me. It wasn’t that I didn’t love those things or enjoy those things anymore. It was a perspective shift for me. You heard me mention at the beginning here that I truly value time, and I really, really do. It’s something we never get back, and I want to make sure that I’m spending my time doing the things that make sense, that I’m spending that time wisely.

So here’s the shift. Is that thrill that I was getting by searching for a yarn, not knowing what I was going to get, is that worth the extra time that I spent in the car? Is it worth driving to a store only to find that you leave empty-handed? That’s something you might not have thought about before. You’re spending the time in the store, and that part is definitely worth it to us, but the time you spend in the car going to the store and from the store — that might not be worth it.

For me, it certainly wasn’t, especially if you’re spending a lot of time. Maybe your store’s not right here in the same city as you. Maybe you have to drive a little bit further. And so it’s in those instances where I had to really think about that and say, is it worth my time to have that thrill two or three, four times a month?

So when I started shopping for yarn online, that meant I didn’t spend the time in the car, I didn’t leave the store empty-handed, and I got to spend all of that time that I would have spent doing that stuff doing the things that I really love, that I really want to do. Now we can do a whole lot in 30 minutes.

Calendar blocking is something I haven’t really talked about too much here on the show. I’ve certainly talked about it at the Handmade Summit and a little bit on my YouTube channel here and there. But calendar blocking is how I schedule things — my entire life, pretty much. Definitely my work life. I know everything that I’m going to do from the moment I wake up, and that really keeps me focused. It helps me to make sure that I am achieving all of my goals.

I know this method is not for everybody. It’s sort of strict. It kind of feels restricting sometimes. It’s a little bit nerve-wracking when you don’t finish in the time that you’ve scheduled. But you don’t have to be a calendar blocker to recognize the value in just 30 minutes.

So for me, that’s what it is. It takes me about 15 minutes to drive to the store, 15 minutes to drive back. So I sit here and think to myself, what can I do in 30 minutes? And I’m looking at my calendar. Man, you can do a lot in 30 minutes. So whether you calendar block or not, as we move into the tips for ordering yarn online, I first want you to think about something you really enjoy doing that you try to squeeze into a 30 minute opening in your day.

Do you like to read maybe a chapter in your book? Do you tend to your houseplants? I know that’s totally random too, by the way. I’m a little obsessed with houseplants right now. And so I couldn’t help but throw that one in there. Certainly how I like to spend some of my extra time these days.

Well, maybe you have a favorite TV show that you like to watch, you want to squeeze in an episode, or you have multiple projects, you want to work a few rows on one of those projects. Whatever it is, if you identify with the thrill of the hunt, like me, and you need to see the value in ordering online, you’re going to need motivation to do that.

And what I found is that your favorite activities, it doesn’t have to be one, by the way, it could be multiple things that you like to do, that you would fill up a 30 minute time slot in your day. That activity or those activities are your motivation. That’s the ticket.

So tip number one for ordering yarn online is just that. Think about the time you’ll save by making less frequent yarn runs, specifically that driving time. Add that up so you know exactly how much time you’re saving and think about what you can do in that time or what you would normally do with that much time in your day if you didn’t have to dedicate it to anything else.

I know I kind of threw you for a curveball on that one, didn’t I? But like I said, that realization was the perspective shift for me that I needed to have in order to be okay with ordering yarn online. Because there are so many different things that we have to think about and consider when we’re making those purchases, we want to make the right purchase and we can’t see it or feel it.

So we’re sort of taking risks by doing this that we aren’t by going to the store, but we’re just exchanging those risks for the extra time to do other things that we love.

All right, so tip number one, think about how much time you’ll save and what you would do with that time.

Now, more recently, I placed a large online order for yarn, and this was definitely out of my comfort zone. I don’t always do this. When I do order online, I am typically ordering for smaller projects, smaller quantities, and this one was sort of the exception to the rule.

This one was particularly challenging because for the project, I wanted a color gradient. So I wanted a smooth, gradual change from one color to the next, within the same color family. So when I was making those comparisons online, I found what I thought was the perfect gradient until I received it in the mail.

When it arrived, the two lightest shades looked almost identical. Not exactly the gradient I was going for, but it still looks pretty great. If you’ve ever opened a package of yarn and you weren’t thrilled with the actual color of it, you definitely know the feeling. This time, I got really lucky, but I know that’s not always the case.

This happens more often than we realize, so I’m dedicating tip number two and tip number three to the issue of it doesn’t look like what it did online. Seriously, wherever you’re at, raise your hand if you have said that before. I’m raising both of my hands over here because that’s just part of it, am I right?

So when we receive a yarn and we say it doesn’t look like what it did online, there’s probably one big thing that’s coming to play there, and that’s the color. So let’s first address the color factor.

Color online, right? You’ve got the camera. What quality was that camera in terms of color? Then you have some of the editing that comes into that after that picture is taken for it to be put online somewhere. It has to go through a designer’s hands. It has some tweaking, some cropping, that sort of thing.

And then you have the screen. That comes into play. Now those first two, we really have no control over. We just have to trust that brands and yarn companies are doing everything that they can to provide the most accurate color representation of their products. I can say this firsthand. I know this is something they prioritize.

The thing that we do have in our control is the screen. Now going back to that gradient story, my screen was the culprit and why I didn’t get exactly what I thought I was getting when I made that order. Since I’m looking at a screen usually 8 hours, sometimes 10 hours a day, I use special monitors that are, well, easier to look at for that long.

And this means that what I see here on my computer is usually a tiny bit lighter than the way I would see that object if it were right in front of me or in my hands. Generally speaking though, monitors are typically more true to color than any other device that you could use to place a yarn order online.

So tip number two is to use a laptop or a desktop computer to place that order or at least to place them in your cart. Now, I will be the first to admit I am not really a techie kind of person. So going in and changing monitor settings is not something that I do.

It’s definitely not something I’m qualified to share with you on how you can do that. But just trust your manufacturer. If you have a newer monitor, you know that it’s working properly and I don’t think you have to go in and play with your settings because, again, these companies are putting a lot of emphasis on color and how the picture looks when it’s coming through the screen.

So just put some trust in your monitor brand and try to do your ordering or at least that initial shopping on a desktop or a laptop so you’re getting the truest possible picture of that yarn that you possibly can.

Now, phones and tablets still work, but you have to factor in a few more little nuances that these devices have. So they have different modes that change the screen and how you see things through them. For example, battery save or power save mode tends to make everything appear a little darker because it’s not lighting the screen up as bright in order to save power.

Another one is night mode. This is something I like to set up to activate in the evening so that when I’m looking at my phone, I’m not being distracted or kept up by that blue light that our devices let off. While this night mode makes everything look a little bit yellow, I try to never post an Instagram photo after 9pm because if I do, the color is way off if I forget to turn that night mode off.

Then there are other features like auto brightness. Don’t even get me started on auto brightness. I am at war with my phone on this one. Auto brightness is a feature that changes the screen based on your surroundings, essentially. If you’re in a bright room, it’ll tend to be a little brighter. If you’re in a dark room, it tends to be a lot darker. It makes sense, but it really can… throw you off if you’re trying to see the true color or the true brightness of something through that screen.

So just make sure if you’re ordering from a mobile device or a tablet, an iPad, any of those things, that you’re looking at these settings and making sure that they’re either turned off or that they’re set up so that you’re getting the truest possible representation of what you’re seeing through that screen.

Okay, so we’re still talking about the “it doesn’t look like it did online” issue, but for tip three we’ll address what to do if you’ve already received it and then you’re not happy with it. How many times has that happened to you? Because I can name off at least three or four just in the past year.

Now I think this goes without saying, but I know I really needed to hear this a time or two when I was disappointed with the color in person—I don’t always think about returning it, right? Exchanging it. Yarn companies and online retailers know that it’s difficult to order online, especially in the yarn industry here. They know that this is a very tactile process. And so they will typically have wonderful return policies in place. Usually no questions asked. You can just return that purchase back and exchange it.

For some reason, I was just never doing that. I didn’t even think about it. So that’s tip number three: familiarize yourself with the return policy and just return it or exchange it if you aren’t 100% happy with that purchase.

Now, alternatively, if you feel like you could use it for another project, of course you could. And something to think about when you do go to replace the yarn that you weren’t totally satisfied with—think about what you received. Is it darker than you thought it was? Is it lighter than you thought it was? What are the differences between what you see in your hands and what you saw on your screen? And use that knowledge to make a more informed purchase when you go to exchange it or replace it with something different.

All right, we’re moving on here. So have you ever looked at a project and were able to identify the yarn as soon as you looked at it or maybe felt it? If you’re a seasoned crocheter or knitter, I’m sure you can do this with several different yarns. So are you guessing where I’m going with tip number four? That’s right. Order what you know, especially if you’re working within a time restraint.

Here’s the thing: when you order the yarn that you’ve used before, there’s almost no risk involved unless you’re maybe selecting a color you haven’t seen in person before. I would say out of all the tips here, this is the one that I use most often. I do really love to try different yarns, especially new ones, but when I’m ordering for frequent projects, I do like to stick with what I know, what I’m comfortable with, what I know works, and more importantly, what I know that I can recommend to you to try for your projects.

So for me, it feels quite natural to stick with what I know when I’m making those yarn purchases. And I think at least initially, when you’re just getting your feet wet and ordering online, if you’ve never really done it before, this is probably the best way to go. When you make your first order, rip off the band-aid by ordering a yarn that you’ve used before so there are no surprises.

Now this tip is especially useful if you’re working within a time restraint. If you have a deadline or if you have a date where you need to gift this item to somebody, the last thing you need to do is order something, and it’s not what you expected. You already waited a week for it. You have to send it back. That takes another week. Then order it and it takes another week to get what you wanted. That’s just a disaster.

But if you are ordering something that you’re already familiar with, you can pretty much avoid most of this.

Now that also is a great segue into tip number five. I sort of hinted at it a moment ago and here it is: give yourself enough time.

Now, you know, if you’ve listened to the show for any amount of time, I am a planning person. Freak. I absolutely love it. I love sharing my tips for how I plan things and maybe what I could have done differently, what I should have done differently.

And so in episode number 105, I walked you through the process of sort of reverse engineering your projects so that you can get them done when you need to. We looked specifically at different dates in the year—so different maybe holidays or birthdays or that sort of thing where you knew you had to have a project. We set that date as your deadline.

And then we worked back from there and we figured out how much time you need to crochet or knit that item. And then we set a reminder to ourselves to start on that so we had an adequate amount of time. We looked at how much time we had in a day and how much we could realistically dedicate to that project. And then we also talked about getting the yarn. We talked about both instances where you’re going to a store and making that purchase or you’re ordering online.

So if you have listened to that episode, you have the tools that you need to make sure that you’re giving yourself enough time to place these online orders. But if you haven’t heard that episode, it would be a really good one to follow this one up with because it’ll help you determine how much extra time you need to place your online orders.

And the one thing I would add to it is to maybe double that time. If it’s your first time ordering that particular yarn and you’re not familiar with it, you need to give yourself enough time to possibly return it and exchange it for something different. So I would double that time so you make sure that you’re setting yourself up on the right foot.

Now, last week’s bonus tip is also a perfect bonus tip for this one. I don’t want to short you here, but I feel like I am giving you just another little reminder of how powerful this tip can be.

What I would encourage you to do is anytime you finish a skein of yarn or you trim the tails off of your project after weaving them in, keep a strand of each yarn you use—like every single yarn, every single color that you use—in some kind of binder or a notebook.

I’m thinking a notebook would probably work okay for this and it’s not going to require a lot of organizing. Now for me, because I’m crazy like that, I love organizing and planning, I would do a binder with like inserts and dividers and all of that stuff and I just get really excited thinking about that.

But just a spare notebook, maybe that has like a big spiral on it because it will get a little bit fatter as you put the yarn in there. But here’s where I’m going with this: you cut the tail, you save it, you take a little piece of tape, and you tape it to that page.

And maybe below it or next to it, you write the brand of the yarn, the name of the specific yarn within that brand, and then… the colorway, most importantly, the colorway. Don’t forget that because we’re really looking for that little piece, that little tail to be your guide for future purchases. So you can say, yes, this is the right color.

Now, I know this will take a little bit of time to set up and to really put this to use when ordering yarn online, which is why it’s a bonus tip. But just think about how nice it’ll be to have something to reference when making the decision to add a specific color or texture or brand or whatever to your cart.

So let’s recap really quick before we wrap things up. When ordering yarn online, using these five tips will help to make sure that you are completely satisfied or less surprised when you receive the yarn in the mail.

Number one, you’ll think about the time you’ll save and let that motivate you to step out of your comfort zone with ordering online. That’s really just to sort of push you over the edge if you haven’t done it before.

Then tip two, use a desktop or a laptop computer if possible to make those purchases or if nothing else to put them in your cart.

Number three, get familiar with the return policies and if all else fails, return it or exchange it. Actually, make it a priority to do that because you want to be completely happy with your yarn because if you’re not happy with your yarn, you’re not going to be happy with the project that’s finished and it’ll be a shame for all of that time spent to go to waste.

Tip number four, order the brands and yarns you’re already familiar with.

And tip number five, give yourself enough time to place the order and make an exchange if necessary. Remember, double that time. If you think it’ll take a week for your yarn to come in, give yourself two weeks just in case.

And then of course, don’t forget that bonus tip to keep your little tidbits and keep them in a binder so you can refer to them in the future. It might not be super useful today, but it could be extremely valuable to you in a month or six months or a year.

Now, this episode wasn’t necessarily sponsored. However, I thought it would be more fitting to share the platform that I like ordering yarn from the most, and that’s Amazon.

My husband and I, we have a Prime account, which means we get two-day shipping on all of our purchases, including yarn orders, as long as those items are Prime eligible. And trust me, I don’t order anything if it isn’t Prime eligible. I just can’t pay for shipping if I don’t have to.

Now, I know I don’t have to tell you how dependable Amazon is. You probably already know this. It’s the reason why it’s pretty much the only retailer that I ever order from. But for ordering yarn specifically, it’s pretty fantastic because of Prime.

Think about it. You’ll get your yarn in two days, which means you’ll have more time to finish your projects. And if you do have to make an exchange like we talked about, you get your exchange in two days. As long as they’re Prime eligible, you get free two-day shipping by being a Prime member.

That for me is completely worth it because standard shipping is usually a week or more. And then the cost could be all over the place. If you’re ordering one skein of yarn, you might pay the same amount as if you bought 20. Or if you buy 20, it could weigh 10 pounds and it’s going to cost you an arm and a leg. Not with Prime.

And it’s worth saying again, if I receive the yarn and I’m not happy with it, I can send it back and have my replacement in two days. Honestly, I very rarely order yarn, or anything else for that matter, from any other website.

Now that’s all I’ll say about Amazon. Again, they’re not formally sponsoring this episode. I’m just a really happy customer and affiliate.

Sponsor messages are an integral part of the show, and I just want to thank you for listening and taking action on them. Because when you do, it not only supports BHooked and its mission, but it helps me continue to spread the message about our craft and what it can mean to someone else.

All right, that’ll wrap up another episode of the BHooked podcast. Be sure to subscribe to the show if you haven’t done so already so you don’t miss next week’s episode, where we’ll continue the yarn mini-series with the topic of fibers and selecting the right fiber for your project.

Remember, we love yarn, we love to learn, and you and I—we believe that yarn can do more for us than just make pretty things.