Thursday, June 23, 2005

30 Replies to “Thursday, June 23, 2005”

1. Yes I am heartbroken and just love the Cotton Ease. I wrote Lion Brand and they gave out a pretty typical boiler plate answer that it was just not selling. If you have a Tuesday Morning store near you – they had some on sale last week.

2. See, this is what happens when you do all that “world traveling,” Ms. B! Cotton Ease has become the crack of the knit blog world, we are trading it with each other, buying it for each other, you name it.

   I say poop on LB for getting rid of it and giving us yet another variety of muppet fur. File this under “things that make you go ugh.”

3. I’m annoyed. Why get rid of a perfectly good yarn and give us 18 more colors of Fun Fur? Personally, I think that if they rethought their colors, cotton-ease would actually sell much better. I console myself that TLC Cotton Plus is still out there in a similar gauge, price, and fiber content. The colors are better too.

4. I have 1400 yards each of 3 colors stashed … :)

5. No kidding… I am making one of those FCEK patterns now, and I have fallen in love with the yarn. I don’t think my JoAnn has any more… where to turn now? RIP Cotton Ease–you will be sorely missed by many a knitter.

   Have a good one, Bonne Marie!

6. I have Blueberry, Popsicle, Candy Blue, and Strawberry Cream…

   Although I think the TLC is nice, (I just made a short-sleeved mock turtle out of it), it is a completely different kind of yarn. It is very shiny, a smaller gauge and knits a fabric that is much heavier than CE, IMHO…

   ALAS!

7. I’m in denial, and I keep hoping that maybe they’ll hear about all the grieving and bring it back! With better colors next time….

8. If I were over there I’d be scooping it up by the barrel! Why would they discontinue such a good yarn???

9. I’m wondering if maybe they’re discontinuing in order to bring out something even better. Maybe just more modern or interesting colors. They’ve got to have a cotton yarn in their range, don’t they?

10. Having just discovered it, I’m really bummed out. Will your patterns using Cotton Ease work with Cotton Plus? I’ve heard they’re interchangeable, but is the gague different enough to be a huge problem?

11. Wow – Don’t know if you ever used Mission Falls Yarns but they had a cotton yarn that matched the gauge on their wool. Their cotton is discontinued too with the explanation they could not find a factory to produce to their standards. Makes one wonder what is going on.

12. The Lion Brand website still has it for sale. I stocked up yesterday.

13. You turned me onto Cotton Ease in the beginning… after reading about how much you loved it, I had to try it. I’ve stocked up on pretty much every color (including the elusive bubble gum pink color), but now I’m stricken with a panic! Is there a pattern out there good enough to use my limited quanity of Cotton Ease on? How will I know when I’ve found The One? What’s most disappointing is they are not even introducing a new cotton line! Cotton Ease was the only LB yarn I use regularly (I have a little Wool-Ease in the stash, though). They won’t get any more of my money now!

14. Hm, I heard somewhere that the discontinuation was an untrue rumor, but now of course I can’t remember where I heard that… So I’m no help, of course. :)

15. particularly crazy behavior from LB since they FEATURE ce patterns in their mag K. 1 – what the #@!* indeed. Don’t you think this is a trick? I feel like they must be rebranding the yarn with a new “cooler”, “younger” name (hey i’m young, i’m just saying) since that is the direction lb is going in… and i’m happy for it, but not happy if they are going to dump an honest yarn like ce!!!!

16. While there is no FouFou yarn, there is a FrouFrou…
    http://www.nauticalyarn.com/yarn/search3New.asp?ProductID=FrouFrou&VendorID=VC4

17. I wonder if this is all a plan perpetrated by the man to keep the good knitter down>> Or, to increase spending on CottonEast 100 fold?? I know they still offer it for sale on the LB site, but JoAnn’s put what little they had left on closeout leading me to believe CE is a goner!!

18. Hmmmm. Sitcom Chic in that bubblegum pink has been on my list of to-dos. I’ve never actually knit with LB Cotton Ease, although I have used LB Wool Ease and Homespun and probably wouldn’t use them again.

    How does LB Cotton Ease compare with Rowan All Seasons Cotton – one of my alltime favorites?

    I am 90% finished with Scoup du Jour in Rowan ASC in Copper. It is gorgeous! Great pattern, Bonne Marie.

    Donna P

19. I think it’s odd they said it wasn’t selling…seems to me to be pretty much a staple yarn. Like vanilla ice cream–you go get your Ben and Jerry’s, but sometimes you just want vanilla.I agree with the color comment–I like the yarn but can’t dig the colors. They just need to expand the color range.

20. Yet another bad decision by LB. Next thing you know they’ll be ditching wool-ease. I do believe that if they had tried to produce CE in more sophisticated colors, they would have been able to expand the market for this yarn. It also didn’t help that they didn’t promote this yarn the way they advertise the frou-frou yarns or the T&Q line.

21. i almost jumped on the hoarding bandwagon but in the end it was the colors that turned me off (i did grab the last of the black and my local joann’s). i agree with a lot of folks here that if they had expanded their colors i’d definitely be a fan.

22. I emailed Lion, and they sent me a rather quick email explaining that the yarn wasn’t selling and that it is out of production. That being said, they have said that they continue to have many colors still in stock.

    Hancock Fabric stores have it marked down to 30% off and Tuesday Morning has it marked down in a few colors. I’ve been hoarding, and really need to stop. I hope that they will see the yarn buying this has created and re-release the yarn in a less kiddie palette.

23. I haven’t ever found cotton ease here in calgary, but i would have bought it if i had. i just don’t understand why these yarn companies are pushing the crazy stuff and ignoring/discontinuing the good, solid, classic yarns!! argh. i had to go to michael’s the other day and they had 2 whole “walls” of “yarn” whereing each and EVERY skein had something shiny, fluffy, fuzzy, or sparkly in it. I had to SEARCH for the wool ease and the Classic Wool. Argh.

24. My thoughts on this crisis is that everyone was counting on CE being around forever. You need it, it will be available at the local Michael’s, no problem. Why would people stash a yarn that is always there?

    BTW, did you hear about Jaeger’s Chamonix and Cashair being discontinued too?

25. one of my first knitting projects was a sitcom chic made in PRECISELY that shade of blue cotton ease. i like it so much more than stinkin’ wool ease — nothing i make from that ever turns out wearable.

26. I suspect it’s one of two things Or maybe a third. Either

    1. (the more trusting explaination) Cotton is maybe harder to mill and spin well? I know that Mission Falls discontinued their 1824 Cotton because they said the mill they had been using closed, and they couldn’t find one that produced the yarn in adequate quality.

    (That said, I was never all that turned on by the bright colors of CE – I’m glad they work on some complexions, but they didn’t work on mine. I’d have bought it had they had maybe a loden green, or a cranberry, or a brown).

    2. (the more cynical explanation) Lion Brand has idiots for consultants, who are telling them that the fluffy novelty yarns are where it’s at, and that they’re going to make a bigger profit on “Fun Fur New Millennium” or whatever the new novelty line will be (Fun Fur that glows in the dark? Fun Fur that makes soft bleating noises as you walk?) than a “boring” basic yarn like CE.

    And then there’s

    3. (The raving conspiracy-theorist explanation): Lion Brand has been targeted by clothing manufacturers because they are doing the unthinkable – encouraging people to make their own wearable clothes! Putting designers and runway models and Henri Bendel’s and Macy’s and everywhere at risk !!!1!!!! And, OMG, they must Be Stopped! So someone slipped a note to the head of Lion Brand in the middle of the night, warning them to carry only yarns useless for making actual garments, or they will pay!!! (I might actually be inclined to believe this if they also drop Wool-ease, the chunky wool-ease, and Landscapes in the next few months, in favor of yet more hairball yarns).

    I don’t know. I guess I figure as long as I have Elann and KnitPicks and know how to substitute yarn, I’ll be pretty much OK. But I do think it’s kind of sad that LB is dropping a good basic yarn. Who knows? Maybe it really didn’t sell…but I find that kind of hard to accept, that they will sell more “Fantasy Fur” than “Cotton Ease”

27. I’ve never been able to find Cotton Ease anywhere near me (even though our Michael’s stocks Wool Ease, it has never had the cotton – go figure). I am curious and would have loved to try it, but I’m not spending the gas money to drive to Washington State, where there are an abundance of stores that seem to carry it. You do have to wonder what the deal is lately with companies like Lion Brand and Patons dropping their classic yarns in favour of even more novelty yarns. I can’t believe that is what the majority of knitters want.

28. WOW! I was reading the blogs and was wondering why the sudden popular urge to hord the Lions CE of late, but hadn’t heard it was because of a discontinuation. And I even get the Lion’s Brand Newsletter! (Maybe I didn’t read the fine print, as I just look at the yarn and patterns.) This is an amazing decision! I only buy Cotton Ease or Wool Ease by Lion’s Brand. I agree with other commentors that the CE could use a color redo. I would love, in the future, to see more muted colors. (For example something in between the bubblegum pink and a fairy pink color, and maybe even add a tweed color to the line.) I love the color options in the Wool Ease however.

    I’m stunned! This was a yarn staple for me in the South. There are not many yarn stores in the South and cotton is the yarn to knit. I hope they reconsider or have another cotton line in the works.

29. I just dropped Lion Brand a note about this travesty! I hope everybody who really loves knitting with a great product like Cotton Ease follows suit and lets them know it’s a mistake. The funny thing is that I have only found it at Joann’s fabrics, and Joann’s is not a place I go to buy yarn. No one else seems to carry it.

    For those who also like the blend, TLC has a product called Cotton Plus and it is a blend of cotton and acrylic and the colors may be more palatable to you too, more muted and softer. They have some tweeds or ombres too.

    Well better yarns have been discontinued and worse have been kept in production…. (LB Micro Fiber…)

30. Am I the only one who doesn’t love this yarn? I just used it for the first time, to make a bucket hat, and found it to be just awful. It untwisted while I cast on, split while I knit, and was just not exciting to me in any way. I’m so not upset. I guess that’s just me. And my floppy little bucket. :-)

Comments are closed.