There Are No Words

for this mess.

At Stitches last spring, I bought 1,100 yards of a rayon/silk blend yarn. It was in a large hank. It cost half of what the vendor charged for two half-hanks because, as they told me, It saves us from having to split and re-hank (probably not the correct term) the length.

Until Friday, when I tried to wind the 1,100 yards, I thought that was a strange reason. How difficult could it be???? I have a swift and ball winder, so off I went to the basement. It turns out that 1,100 yards of this stuff weighs about 18 ounces, and the combination of rayon/silk is very slippery. Combine the weight and the slipperiness, and I had a disaster in the making. It kept sliding down the swift, winding itself around the shaft and any other place in its way.

I was able to successfully wind only about half of it:

So on Friday I started trying to wind it by hand. Here is the progress as of Friday night when I gave up and went to bed:

Here is Saturday's progress, a result of both my and Dh's efforts:

Here is the progress made by Sunday evening:

I would have mailed it to younger daughter, who is very good with this type of fiddly bits, but I really want to take the yarn with me to SAFF this weekend. We will be there for four days, and making a shawl of this yarn would be a good project for the times we are not fondling yarn and yarn-producing animals.

I am, however, close to saying, Forget it. I'll cut it and just use it randomly, and not pay attention to the color gradations the dyers intended.

But Dh says we've put too much time into it to give up now, so....

to be continued......................................