Yarn Chicken

Sometimes you have a ball of yarn.

Just a ball.  No band.  No information.  No yardage calculations.  Just a ball.

And you think to yourself "that looks like enough yarn to knit a ..."  insert whatever knit item you really want to knit with this yarn.

This is known as yarn chicken.

Can you knit your item before the yarn runs out?

It is a known fact that if you knit fast enough you can finish your item before the yarn runs out.  The trick is to not stop knitting.   If you put your knitting down to do silly things like go to the bathroom, or eat, or sleep, the yarn will win.

And sometimes you pull out every trick in the book and the yarn wins anyways.  Someday I will share the black baby sweater, a classic case of the yarn winning.

And sometimes you decide to knit the bodice of a baby dress.

And you win.

You win so spectacularly that you also knit

matching leg warmers to be worn with the dress.

I so WIN.

Current count:  6 baby sweaters, 1 pair of leg warmers, and 0 pictures of a baby wearing any form of hand knits.

I'm still counting this as a win.

I need to attach fabric to the bodice, but since I knit a 2T and the Queen is wearing 6/9 month clothes (but creeping up on 12 month, she's had a growth spurt) I figure I've got time to find the perfect skirt.

I've been pondering why I've poured so much energy into baby sweaters the Bean will barely wear.  I think my grown up sweaters have been so disappointing lately I just don't have the heart to knit any more for now.

I did sit down with my fabulously rust stained purple sweater this morning.

I turned this...

Into this...

I only cried a little.

I cut out all the rusty sections I could find, but I fear I may have missed a few of the smaller sections.  Some sneaky parts only discolored a single stitch.  But when you're dealing with such a highly saturated solid color a single stained stitch that hid while I was frogging could ruin the next finished object.

In the end I discarded

38 grams of yarn.

My records show I had three unused skeins of yarn, but I could only find two this morning.  I don't know if The Queen has claimed a skein as her own, or if I lack basic math skills and counted to three when there were only two.  But either way I have 100 grams of untouched yarn.  So assuming I have some basic math skill left knocking around my brain, I SHOULD have enough yarn to reknit the sweater if I so desire, and even some extra to eliminate having to resort to using some of the small balls of yarn (decreasing the number of ends I will ultimately have to weave in).

Of course this is assuming I have basic math skills, and assuming I weighed everything correctly. and assuming I don't lose any more balls to the Queen, or the Yarn Gnomes, or who ever it is who keeps stealing my yarn.  And assuming I have the heart to knit the purple yarn again.

I feel like there is a lot of assuming going on.

It all feels like a big game of yarn chicken.