What's With All the Knots?

This week, I have knit on five projects, using five different brands of yarn. Three of those yarns---three!---had one or more knots, where the yarn had broken and been tied together.

Some of the knots were large, some were tiny. Their size is immaterial. Their presence, however, is not.

In two cases, the yarn had a regularly repeating color variation, and one section---or parts of two segments---of color were missing. Thus, the scarf for which I painstakingly matched my skeins of yarn so that one half would be the mirror image of the other, will not, despite my efforts, have matching halves.

Do yarn manufacturers think knitters are blind? That we don't care if one or more color segments are missing from a skein of yarn?

Why don't yarn manufacturers sell such skeins at a reduced price? Or at least indicate that the skein isn't perfect? They could sell the less-than-perfect skeins at a "factory outlet" type store, where anyone who bought a skein would know that, for some reason, it wasn't quite like the skeins displayed at local yarn shops.

Of course, the manufacturers wouldn't make as much money as they do now. But, on the other hand, I'm unlikely to ever buy another skein of this manufacturer's yarn, so while the company made an extra profit on this skein of yarn, it won't be getting my money in the future.

Do knots make you nutty? Or is it just me?

Susannah