WHAT'S HARDER THAN KNITTING?

unknitting!

I had one of two panels of my new project almost finished, and I could see that the panel was not going to be either wide or long enough. Even the clerk at the knit shop admitted that the written pattern for the jacket/shawl did not match the illustration. And it was easy to see that three skeins of yarn were not going to be sufficient. I went back home and with the skein wrapper in hand telephoned back with the color and dye lot.

Waited for the order to be filled.

Several days later went back to the knit shop to pick up the extra skein of yard -- did I say this yarn is Peruvian? Lovely. Soft, delightful to the touch. And a heavenly denim-y color. I should mention that the knitting was being done with two strands of thread at the same time. The clerk was knitting her jacket/shawl with two different colors of thread, producing a mottled effect.

Drat! The new skein, in fact the two new skeins, since apparently the minimum order is two skeins, were a different dye lot. The color difference was slight, but still enough to make a difference.

So what was the logical thing to do? Buy both of the new skeins, of course. Knit the panels using one skein from one dye lot and another skein from the second dye lot.

And face the task of unraveling the first panel. Took me hours to complete the unraveling. I tried several different approaches to the problem, but they were all tedious. Some involved stretching the yarn across the room. The two strands had not been twisted together, but they clung to each other like entwined vines.

I have come close to completing the first panel, but I have not bound off the stitches in case I decide to add a few more rows. I'll make that decision when I am near to completing the second panel and can better envision how the finished garment will look.

Thinking of how stunning the finished garment will look keeps me going, but it sure takes a long time. When I do finish, I'll be more than ready to go back to ankle warmers.