Yarn Chicken

Any Ravelers out there? You might be familiar with the term yarn chicken. It’s an actual term, and not one I can take credit for. I first heard it from Patty Lyons, my knitting hero. It very accurately describes the experience of, when making something out of yarn, fearing you will run out of yarn before the project is complete.

I’m writing about this not only because it’s a common experience, but because this is what gardeners do for fun in February.

Here is the scene. You bought some wonderful, dreamy, creamy, hand died skeins of your perfect weight in your perfect color from that special place you were that you’ll never return to. You have picked the project that absolutely matches your yarn, your style, your fundamental character. You did due diligence, swatched your yarn, got your gauge, did the math. Your project needs 1275 yards for your size. You have 4 skeins of 320 yards each. You’ll totally make it.

Than an interesting process happens. It usually involves two stages. Sometimes three. Often three.

#1 A realization.

The yarn seems to be diminishing exponentially to the rate of the growth of the project. This means either there is some warp in the time space fabric of physics, or, less likely, you were stingy at the yarn store. This always happens once you are well past the halfway point. You have already committed an embarrassing amount of time to this project.

#2 A decision. You have a choice to make. You can:

• Choose some other yarn to finish the project and have a sweater that is entirely unique. (Read absurd)
• Scrap the project and make something that requires less yarn. (NEVER!)
• Put the project aside until you can spend time searching other people’s yarn stash online for your particular color and die lot number, and then proceed to email complete strangers and beg them to sell you one of their skeins (yes I have actually done this.)
• Forge ahead, for you know in your heart your yarn will not run out before that last cuff is cast off.

You, in this scenario, choose the last, for experience has taught you that faith has a place in the universe. Plus, your love for this project goes beyond the boundaries of physics, and miracles do happen.

And then you play Yarn Chicken.

I tell you, not proudly, that I have been in this situation more times than I care to admit. After thirty plus years of knitting, I have most likely frogged more stitches than I have actually knit into usable items. People say I’m a fast knitter. I say I’m a slow learner.

And then #3. Frogging.

This is when you finally admit that it’s a lost cause. You will never have enough of the right yarn to finish the project and you rip out all your stitches. You unravel your project, and re-ravel your lovely overworked yarn back into sad little balls, to sit patiently in your stash, waiting for the project it was REALLY meant to be.

I recently joined a KAL. This is an acronym for Knit-A-Long, for those textile neophytes among you, where everyone who joins knits the same project at the same time with the same type of yarn. I had never done one before. Why knit something everyone else is knitting? What’s the point of a hand made hat/scarf/sock/sweater if everyone else has one just like it? But this time I decided to give it a go. I liked the project, and I thought I would expand my repertoire, learn something new, jump in to the online knitting community. What a mistake.

Of course I didn’t use the same yarn. I can only bend so far.

And I won’t bore you with the tragic details.

The good news is that I didn’t have to play Yarn Chicken. This was because I ran out of yarn before I even noticed it was happening. I was just knitting along until I came to the end. Whoops.

My mother-in-law, after hearing the saga of my first and last KAL, said to me something along the lines of “Following the patterns has never been a major aspect of your knitting experience”. What I heard was “When are you going to recognize your nature and adapt your behavior?”

Lessons for us all, right? Happy knitting!