Cursed Yarn

Have you ever had cursed yarn? That yarn that just WILL NOT be made into a project, no matter how much you try to force it into a mold? I have been struggling with one of these yarns for almost a year and I think I'm at the point where I just can't look at it anymore. I don't even want to deal with frogging back the latest attempt. I just don't want to touch or look at this yarn anymore. It may just turn me off of Cascade 220 all together.



It all started innocently enough. My husband let me get the Rogue pattern after much waiting. I downloaded the pattern, printed it out, and started plotting. My Rogue wanted to be red. A deep, rich, crimson red. We had the perfect 220 color at the store and I thought it would make a fantastic Rogue. I knew I'd have to knit it a little looser than I like to knit my sweaters, but with all that cable work, looser is better, right? With this 220, the answer is WRONG. Looser means pills. As your knitting with the yarn. The finished part of the sweater was pilling as it sat on my lap and I worked on the remainder of the sweater. Shortly before dividing for the arm holes, I decided that this would not work. I couldn't wear a sweater that pilled this much. Rogue deserved better.



So I frogged nearly a month of work. I frogged my beautiful cables that I'd agonized over. I frogged the pocket that drove me nuts, trying to get it to seamlessly attach the way the pattern asked me to. I frogged it all. And the yarn sat in my stash for the next 6 months contemplating it's indiscretions.



I thought time was all it needed. I pulled it out from time to time to see if it was ready to be recreated. It stubbornly refused to tell me what it wanted to be. It didn't want to be felted (except into cat toys for my downstream SP), it didn't want to be a knit sweater, it didn't want to be a bag, it didn't want to be a hat, scarf or mittens. It wanted to be obnoxious, beautiful, and impossible to use.



3 weeks ago I found a crocheted trench coat pattern that I knew it could become. I powered through the back and the first front. It was cooperating! It could become this jacket.

I started on the second panel knowing I was going to be close on yarn. Very close. As written, I would be about 200 yards short of the pattern's required yarn. But the next size up was 3 inches larger in the chest and called for the same number of balls. And I was doing so many mods to cut down on yarn: I shortened it by 5 inches in length, wasn't going to do the stand-up collar or the belt, and my sleeves were going to be at least 2 inches shorter. I thought I would be ok. So into the second panel I go. The increases and decreases for waist shaping are giving me a few issues on this panel, but I figure it out and soldier through.

I end my panel with one remaining ball in the existing dyelot. 1 ball and 2 sleeves. Each front panel took about 1.5 balls. The back took about 3 balls. I was in deep doo for the sleeves. So I checked the store for the same dyelot - no go (the yarn was a year old, I wasn't expecting much). I put out my plea on various message boards. Not a nibble. So I decided that I'd be resourceful and make the new dyelot work.

Split the last ball of original and the ball of new dyelot and started the first sleeve with half a ball of the new. When it was getting low I slowly faded into the old dyelot so the sleeve would match at the seam. Problem #1: the new dyelot was considerably denser than the old. The gauge was the same, but the density of the fabric was considerably different. I decided to push forward anyway, I just wanted this thing DONE!

I was still very close on yarn, but now the sleeve cap shaping was looking... Odd... Short... Just not right. I normally do my sweaters in the round, either top down or bottom up, with raglan sleeves and wasn't quite sure if it was looking normal or not, since I have little to no experience in this area. So I took my sleeve, and I took my assembled back & front (joined only at the shoulder to make seaming the sleeves easier) and I laid them out in the way I assumed they went together.

Well that looked even more odd. So I waited for my crochet-guru boss to come in. I tell her the yarn is cursed and ask if she knows what's wrong with my sleeve cap.With the way she's looking at it, I know something is majorly screwy with it! She's trying not to laugh and manipulating the sleeve and sweater, trying to see how they'll go together. At this point, it's either laugh or cry, so I start laughing.

"Think we should have a long vest for display this winter?" I ask. She laughs, says that's a great idea and pulls out some faux fur to trim it with.

So now, what do I do to punish the sleeve? It needs an appropriate funeral so that I don't have to work with this yarn again! I'll put pictures up this weekend of the "vest." The fur turned out pretty cute, not something I normally do, but cute. Very much in my boss' style.