What Was I Thinking?

Outta Yarn

Okay, I was going to talk about the ethics of buying required yarn for a lace knitting class I was planning on taking. But now I realize I can't take the class because of scheduling conflicts, so that isn't an issue any more.

But here is my new problem. No, I haven't run through my stash yet. What happened was that I was finishing these Knitty.com Fetching wrist warmers and ran out of yarn. This is the second pair that I've had that happen to. The pattern calls for one skein of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran. I went up to get the link and now I see they've added a warning to the pattern that perhaps two skeins might be necessary. Now you tell me. You'd think I'd have learned my lesson on the first pair which I ended up shorting the last thumb hole and knitting from trimmings in the bottom of my knitting bag--still I thought by being very frugal with my cast-on tails and when I cut the thread at the end of the first one, I might make it through the pair, and still . . . not enough yarn to finish the thumb. Doesn't that little bit of yarn just make you want to weep.

I don't want to discourage anyone from making these wrist warmers
because they are lovely--and fun and quick to make. I learned two new skills making them--a cable cast-on (which has nothing to do with cables)and makes a nice stretchy cast-on, and picking up and knitting from live stitches. You can see the blue yarn in this first pair I made, and then the live stitches after I picked out the blue waste yarn. Then you pick up the stitches and knit the thumb, without using a gusset. There is that trembling moment when you have live stitches floating out there that makes you nervous, but I suppose that is rather like the bungee jumping of knitting.

One other reccommendation I would make: on the next to last round of 4x2 ribbing, I knit tog the middle two stitches of the K4 part of the rib. It helped pulled the top opening in a bit, and they fit better on my hands--though I have narrow hands, so that may be just me.

Still that leaves me a bunch of single skeins, and obviously I'm a 2 skein gal when it comes to this pattern. The plan was to make a bunch of these as Christmas presents, but I only bought one skein of each color to make them . . . well before I made the vow . . . (See me banging my head against my desk.) Really truly, I don't want to go buy more yarn. See me weeping and wailing as I scoop up my keys and go bolting out the door . . .

But I did act with some restraint last night, and instead of tossing the whole works against the wall, I went into the project box and pulled out the three skeins of Helio I had and the Spring 2006 issue of Interweave Knits, and cast on a pair of the Rib and Cable Mitts found on page 68. Here is my first night's knit.