Sounds like you are having a good morning!
Is Paton's Country really discontinued--or are we starting a rumor here??

You are too funny! You know I still have your Bday present all boxed up and waiting to be sent. Is your addy somewhere here on CAP?

Thank you! You make me laugh no matter what subject you are writing about. I hope some day someone will give you a ton of money to write so that you never stop!!

It is just the insidious nature of evil yarn companies who know, just know what yarn addicts go through trying to find the perfect (and always discontinued) yarn to knit up that pattern that is still in print. Yes, there is substitution, but let me tell you, it doesn't always work!

I just added up how much I've spent on yarn in the last seven months. Oops! All yarn, even yummy discontinued ones, are now off limits. Waaa.

i LOVE a woman who can hold a grudge! some people cave in and just let that new color they think is SO pretty get in the way and , heck, it HAS been 12 years, but they are so weak and WRONG! one must have principles!

oh, and while you are knitting that sweater for the storage shed, you may just want to hold on to the cardboard box the yarn came in as well. just thinking it might come in handy ;)

Does/did Patons make Up Country in "Bare Sugar". Cause I'm thinking that would be a great way to celebrate the abandonment. If you wanted to celebrate. Um..nevermind...move along...nothing to see here.

Not to be an evil yarn pusher, but it appears that there is still Up Country available by the 10-skein bag at yarns-and.com (http://www.yarns-and.com/Patons/PATupcountry.htm). You know, just in case. Of course, they also show still having Cotton Ease, so maybe the site isn't updated.

And, boy, do I know about the yarn buying. We knitters all understand the compulsion. ;) I don't even want to think about how much I've spent on yarn in the past year. Really. Your budget spreadsheet scares me because of that. I am at once drawn to it, because I want to be good, but also I just don't want to lose my complete denial.

A girl has to do what a girl has to do.

Lucky you getting the Up Country in that light blue!

Makeup grudges are the best - still holding one against Clinique for discontinuing the greatest shade of eye pencil. You are the best too.

I want some Patons Up Country! If only because it is discontinued and now I may never have the joy of buying it, hording it and knitting it!

Also, with the hording? I have this favorite lotion from Bath and Body Works that has been discontinued and when they have their twice yearly sale they get a small shipment of it (how is it discontinued if they still have some??) and I buy all of it that is in the store. Just in case.

I live 50 minutes from the Patons factory outlet!!
Last time I was there for their big sale I passed on the Up Country because it has to be hand washed. The store's regular prices suck (and they are right across the street from the factory, but I can get it cheaper elsewhere), but it's a cool store for discontinued yarns, seconds, and mill ends by bulk.
However, even with the great exchange rate in your favour, and a comfy free place to stay (with me!), I think the airfare would put any savings into the negative column :(

my name is kendra and i too am a hoarder. but i hoard everything. if it's on sale and it's something i will use, i buy lots. for your consideration: the six month period of time in which i had no less than 38 boxes of cheerios in my cabinets and under my sink. i need more storage. i have four tupperware bins full of yarn in storage in massachusetts. and every shade of green eyeshadow known to man. please... help... by sending yarn! and green eyeshadow! yay!

So you are the one responsible for elann's lack of UpCountry! I was going to buy some to make a sweater for my mother for her birthday (my first sweater, mind you) and by the time I saw it on there and then got her approval of the yarn, it was all gone. Oh tragedy! ;) Oh well, I am knitting the sweater out of Lion Brand MicroSpun. We'll see how that turns out.

Thanks for making my blue Monday brighter L. Adorable as usual in your own little smarty pants way. Luv ya, Pete

Trader Joe's is the poster child for serial product abandonment. Every time I go there, which is once a week, I discover they've discontinued another one of my favorites, the bastards. If you're the type to get attached to food products (What? It's possible!), I recommend avoiding TJs at all costs.

Now you know how we'll all feel IF you ever get the crazy idea to abandon us and stop writing!

You know who's really bad at discontinuing nice stuff? Reynolds. I hate that company. Just when I get all addicted to something nice, they get rid of it. Grr!

I'm still mad that my perfume was discontinued a couple of years ago (Manifesto by Rossellini). I bought as much as I could buy online and all, but I've finally come to terms that I had to find a new one. Watch--the Body Shop will discontinue this too.

Keep the grudge! Maybe they'll finally figure out why their sales are so low. :)

Horder? yes. i'm a Horder with a capital H! Need i mention my colgate obsession again??

http://knitkittyknit.blogspot.com/2005/04/discontinued.html

i already have 9 skiens of upcountry in the closet. after reading your post i'm feeling that frenzy in my belly to search for MORE and MORE on the internets. Discontinued? I must have MORE.

BTW, did you know that Rowan Plaid has now been discontinued? I now have 10 skeins of it from ebay and am awaiting another shipment.

Problem? What problem. I buy yarn. I fall down. I buy more yarn. What kind of problem is that??

E - With the TJ's? I'm so with you. Everytime I get addicted to something they discontinue it. I still hold out hope that one day those things will magically reappear.

Bina - With the Manifesto? I just got some last summer. Albeit in Romania. But still. I have friends there. Maybe I could hook you up? (Perfume fix. LOL!)

StacyO - Thanks for the Rowan Plaid FYI...now it's on my list to hunt down and hoard.

Laurie - I knit the roll brim hat last night (yes, all in one night...what? no, I do NOT obsess much). Love your fabu design! Worked perfectly. I'm now dreaming up how to knit kid hats that look like fruit or veggies using that pattern. Think little tomatoes, cherries and apples.

Dang it! All I needed was a couple of skeins of that light blue for a cabled hat....and it was GONE! I wondered what the heck was going on & now I see it's entirely your fault. Sheesh - you couldn't have left 2 lousy skeins????

I'm just sayin'.

Never mind. I'm going to go knit a voodoo doll out of my incredible hoard of Cotton Ease and name her Laurie....Bwahahahahahaha

Hi, my name is Vanessa and I'm a hoarder.
It's genetic.
I get it from my grandmother:
http://nessacery.blogspot.com/2005/05/little-compulsive.html

she got it from her mother. When my great-grandmother passed away and we were cleaning out her house we found SO MUCH CRAP! Not just yarn, fabric, knitting & crochet needles & other reasonable understandable stuff. It was things like those little green plastic baskets that stawberries come in at the grocery store and plaques for all of the money that she sent to televangelists over the years.
Then there were the things that made us cry. Like my cousin and I used to draw on paper napkins in restaurants when we were kids and we found shoeboxes with all of our "napkin art" in them.

I went over all Y2K when they discontinued Mission Falls 1824 cotton. I found some buried in the back of an LYS two weeks ago, and snapped it up even though I am ostensibly on a Yarn Diet because I achieved SABLE months ago. I am now reduced to stalking eBay auctions, hoping for just a few.more.skeins of my particular brand of crack, er, yarn.

I had a similar Lipstick Tragedy, although mine was with Lancome and the most wonderful rosy burgundy. Clinique has something close, but I'll never find Lancome's magic again.

Have you noticed companies seem to discontinue a yarn only immediately after a pattern (which coincidentally requires umpteen balls of said yarn) is published in some ultra-popular knitting mag? Yeah, happened to me with Filatura di Crosa's Luna. Love that stuff. Loved the sweater (which required 17 balls of Luna) that appeared in the Winter '04 Vogue Knitting. Scoured the net for hours to find it. Thank god for Webs. (So yes, I am also a hoarder.)

So whatcha' gonna make with all that Up Country?

hehehe. Speaking of holding on to grudges ... check this out. Just ran across this and thought ya'll might enjoy!

In May, retired obstetrician Parviz "Peter" Modaber, 73, was ordered by a judge to stay out of Clarke County, Va., following his fourth conviction for taking bags of garbage from his home near Charles Town, W.Va., and dumping them along a highway in Clarke County, though court records described by The Washington Post indicated that Modaber had done it many more than four times. Modaber's attorney said the doctor held an intense grudge against the state for having suspended his license during the 1980s and that bucolic Clarke County just happened to be near his home. Modaber had been sentenced three times to a total of 540 hours of picking up litter, but a vigilant citizen caught him dumping again less than six months after the third conviction. [Washington Post, 5-15-05]

Ack! No wonder I saw some Up Country on sale! I love that stuff for felting. I just made my first purse out of it and was planning to start some more. I guess that I will be spending tonight driving around to pick up any remaining on the shelves.

You are not alone in your Up Country love.

I have hoarding issues too. Mine are compounded by the fact that I live in a TINY town, with just Wal-mart to shop at, and said Wal-mart has capricious habits of discontinuing brands/items I NEED.

I know, I know, they have these "buying agreement" things to blackmail producers into giving them cheap prices and they'll drop one like a hot rock if they won't play along, but that doesn't help when they've discontinued ALL the nice Pepperidge Farm cookies, I have PEOPLE coming over in a couple hours that I want to feed nice snackies too, and the only other choices are some permutation of Oreos or their own crap store brand.

The Target 1/2 hour from me is equally bad about getting you hooked on some kind of food item and then capriciously dropping it - except that they keep people coming back, in the sort of hope-springs-eternal delusion, because sometimes after not finding an item for eight months, there it will be, back on the shelves. (And then I go into overdrive and stand there practically vibrating with indecision in the aisle - do I buy ALL of it because I know wicked Target will probably drop it again, or do I only take what I want right now in the hopes that it will continue to be available?)

And don't get me started on the yarn. I live in fear that yarn companies are in a collusive plot to discontinue all the "basic" useful yarns and replace them with things with hair and glitter that you can't really use to knit an actual sweater with, so that we will all be driven to either buy commercial sweaters or unravel previous creations as a source of yarn. (Or learn to spin, I suppose, but I'm not quite prepared to take that step yet.)

Hoarder? You betcha. Of course. Knitter = hoarder. It's the natural order of things.

Now, grudge holder? bwahahaha. I take great pride in my grudge holding abilities. Stellar, truly. So now?

I HATE YOU ELIZABETH ARDEN! AND I WILL NEVER USE A SINGLE ONE OF YOUR PRODUCTS! REMEMBER THAT INNOCENT TEEN? AND HER LOVE OF A CERTAIN LIP TINT? WELL, YOU'LL REMEMBER IT NOW, WON'T YOU!

See? I'm nothing if not a giver. he he he

I just cannot type a good comment cause - you are ME! Just another ME TOO! Argh! Companies that discontinue!

Hah! Revlon discontinued my favourite perfume when I was sixteen - and I have never forgiven them! It was my first lesson in the nasty grasping nature of big corporations. Never mind that that perfume would only suit a sixteen year old - I still want it back! And the hoarding? I have long ago given up the fiction that I will only buy yarn for specific projects - sometimes, it's all about the sheer pleasure of buying yarn.

Personally I'm all pissed off that Pavilions doesn't carry AlphaBits anymore, but that's a whole other drama for another time.

I hear you sister! When I was sixteen, Cover Girl discontinued Rose Quartz lipstick - as if I hadn't become dependent on it!! I no longer wear makeup, sadly for everyone else. And the yarn companies must stop discontinuing their yarns. MUST STOP. But of course you had to buy it; all budgets must have allowances for emergencies, which this is. We're with you!

I think companies should have to ask the public first before they discontinue something--especially something vital like yarn or makeup or candy. Yes candy--stupid Hershey's (I think it was Hershey's) discontinued the "BAR NONE" bar when I was in high school and I'm still mourning the loss. Now to get all that carmel and crunch and chocolate and peanuts I have to pinch off little bits of 6 different candy bars and try to stuff them in my mouth all at once just to get the satisfaction I once had in one bite of the bar none. Also, Cover girl discontinued the "firehouse red" nail polish which was the perfect shade for my toes (making them look less like ghostly baby potatoes and more like actual pretty little piggies that should be displayed for all the world to see in open-toed sandals). I used to love to paint my toes and listen to Tiffany. Sigh....

BTW...for all addicted to the Patons Up Country:

www.wooltrends.ca

It's a Canada based company and the good exchange rate might off-set the shipping. Just FYI.

Estee Lauder Russian Red. 1990. Sigh.

i'd probably love it too - if only there was anywhere decent to buy yarn around here!! WAH! i seem to be whining about this a lot lately. the discontinue QUEEN is MaryKay (r.i.p)... this company ALWAYS discontinues my stuff :(

I LOVE patons up country... sob... I managed to snatch up the 1 (yes, ONE) remaining skein in Michaels one day for $2 (yes, two) dollars (CDN). What am I going to do with one skein of up country (in a beautiful blue)? I don't know, but I HAD TO HAVE IT. (plus, $2??? why would i not buy it?)

I am convinced that yarn manufacturers are so desperate to grab the attention of "new" knitters with their flashy fancy sparkly fuzzy furry "yarns" that they are getting rid of the stand-by, sturdy, beautiful, soft, useful classic yarns to make room in the stores. (don't get me wrong, I don't think that all new knitters would only want fuzzy furry yarns, just that maybe the yarn manufacturers think so)

sob.

Welcome to the ever so exciting world of yarn shopaholics. It's a sickness I tell ya!

I am calling you back tonight. I am a total loser, but I luv ya anyway!

Oh, I can so relate about the yarn hoarding... when I heard that Mission Falls cotton was being discontinued, I spent several weeks buying it obsessively on ebay. I ended up with like 50 skeins of it, no lie. Have I actually used any of it yet? No. But if I ever want to, it's there.

Speaking of obsessive, I've been reading your blog obsessively for awhile now. My husband is getting kind of sick of you, though, because I keep reading parts of it out loud to him...

I hoard Up Country, too. 'Nuff said.

I know what you mean about missing a yarn that's been discontinued.

I fell in love with the Valurugai yarns, particularly Mimosa. I manage to snag some on e-bay now and then, but it's getting scarce. Unfortunately, by the time I had first discovered it, it was already being discontinued. *Sigh*

http://www.patternworks.com/PWShopping/partsvyarn.asp?action=lookup&partno=721&subject=&catpos=

Limited color selection, but hey! Hoarders can't be choosers.

i'm not the only one who hoards Cotton Ease?!

Taral--I might take you up on that. I'm trying to make peace with not having my personal scent anymore and trying to find a new one (after years of looking before and finding Manifesto--gah!). I like the Body Shop Africa Spa stuff, but it's not the same. :(

Bina - You just let me know. I was so happy to find Manifesto there. I think it is something like $25 (the exchange rate there is very, very good).

I'm angry that Cafe Express doesn't have gazpacho any more... since they got bought by WENDY'S.
DH is upset because we can't get his "favorite" (?) toilet paper anymore.
It's always something.
Glad to read you being yarn endowed and feisty.
(I bought discontinued yarn at least twice through eBay. Don't give up!)

I'm a (w)hoarder. There. It's said. I'm sending $74.98 to a woman I never met except through a circular knitting email list for YARN because she describes it so beautifully and it's only $2 and $3 a SKEIN!! How can I resist such great prices? For lavender and lilac yard in both wool ($2) and mohair ($3)???? I have got to have it! It will join the TWO overflowing clothes/yarn stash hampers I already have and the plastic bag and the tote bag....

Purl? May I please join you in the storage locker? Peri the Bi-Polar, Princess of all Orange Cats and I will need a home when my husband discovers I've added to the stash.
Love you, woman! You make my mornings here in the northeast bright as they can be!

-Leslie

I have a stash. I'm a hoarder. This includes hoarding TP like there's no tomorrow...because using my nice yarn as TP is just too gross! I also hoard nice soaps from the local Farmers Market even though I know they're always there and I know how to reach them to make any orders which I won't do because I know they are at the Farmers Market. I don't always use the soaps right away. Cuz if you use it up, would that still be hoarding? =p

I actually have a love for Wool-East Thick & Quick, which no one else seems to like. I would be pretty teed off if it was discontinued...

I so need to read about your yarn budget. I have been totally out of control with the yarn buying lately. LYS going out of business, another with a bag sale, etc. etc.

Oops! I meant Wool EASE! ;-D