My Conscience is Finally Clear

A few years ago, maybe five, maybe more, a friend who is not a knitter gave me some beautiful yarn she bought in Colorado? New Mexico? I don't remember now. Occasionally she or the friend she was shopping with would ask me what I had made from it.

Uh, nothing.

The problem is that there were no tags on the yarn, so I didn't know how much was in the huge hank she brought me. And I don't know what the fiber is. Also, since I am an average knitter, not a genius knitter like friends Marina (from Russia) and Anna (from Ukraine) who don't need no stin, ahem, who don't need patterns (showoffs!), I do need patterns. And I have to slavishly follow them.  I've seen both A and M just decide, hmmmm....I think I'll add some lace/cables/shaping to this sweater/scarf/jacket I'm making. La la la....

And they just DO it. Amazing. But that is not me.

So I would have had to know the amount of yarn in the hank in order to match it to a pattern and I did undo the hank and wind it into smaller hanks and then into balls and then out of balls to try and measure the yarn.  I ended up with a horrible tangle, which knitter Sally untangled for me. And a thought came to me:  instead of knitting one LARGE thing which I may or may not have enough yarn for, I could knit a couple of smaller things. And that's what I've done. I wound the untangled yarn into one HUGE, basketball-sized ball, and have knitted---so far---two cowls. There is probably enough yarn left to make a scarf.

They look a bit lumpy, but that's the yarn and they don't look like that on a person. I'm going to give them to the friend who gave the yarn to me, for her and her friend to have. As a knitter, I have a million, zillion scarves and cowls, and except for the past couple of days, usually have little chance to wear them. We didn't get but a quarter inch of snow yesterday, but we did get ice and it's cold outside. To us Southerners. (It was 11 degrees outside this morning, so stop laughing. That counts as cold anywhere.)

So, the yarn that has been glaring at me reproachfully from my yarn closet, clearly shouting: knit me! you.......  no longer has reason to complain. 

And to save my conscience the nagging, the next time I am given a gift of yarn, I will figure out what to make from it, well, sooner than in five years time.