Word Out 2013

Do you have skeins of yarn in your stash that you have absolutely no idea what you’re going to make with them? Do you have a couple that you really question your own sanity about, as in what possessed you to buy that yarn, knowing full well that it couldn’t be used for very many designs? I’m suffering from that problem now. I have four skeins of yarn that I have no clue what to do with, and they’re driving me crazy. I’ve tried at least four times to make something with these yarns over the past year, and each time I’ve ended up ripping them back again to the beginning, swearing never again.

Here are the skeins in question.

I see pink and more pink

I read somewhere that fun fur yarn (the bright pink one) should be wound together with another yarn to make it stronger.  So, I made the decision to make the yarn an even brighter shade by winding it with the other fluffy pink yarn (the pale pink one) and make one big ball.

With our powers combined…

That done, I decided to try to find something to make with it. These are the projects I’ve tried (and failed) so far with this yarn.

First, I thought it would be really cute to make it into a hand puppet to use for shows in the branch.
I found a really simple design in Easy to Make Puppets: 33 Rod, Finger, Glove and String Puppets by Joy Gammon (pp. 52-53). You start with an edge of two rows of knit 1, purl 1 rib, and then the rest is done in straight stitch (knit 1 row, purl 1 row) until it measures 30 cm. Needless to say, I got bored trying to keep track of how long it was getting, and I think I had dropped a few stitches by that point, so I ripped it back to the beginning and decided to start over.

Second, I found a simple design for a knitted felted basket in the April 2013 edition of Canadian Living Magazine (p. 101) which seemed like a good use for the yarn. I made it through knitting 38 cm (15 inches) for the basket’s handle, and had progressed as far as 2 inches of the basket itself when I started finding that I didn’t have enough room on my straight needles to accommodate all of the stitches for the basket part. Disheartened, I ripped it back again and tried to find something else.

Third, I considered making a Fish Hat from the free design I found online at Knitty.com. This looks

super cute and I really would like to make it one day, but I found that the pattern didn’t translate very well to being knitted flat instead of in the round with this kind of yarn, so I gave up after the first few rows.

The last pattern I recently tried to make was for a stuffed animal with a pocket in the front designed by Mary Jo Martinek. Her pattern looked awesome! I thought, “This is what I should have done from the beginning!” I started it and everything seemed to be going great, but then things started getting busy with the summer and I felt like I couldn’t give it the time and patience that I wanted. I still feel so sad about having to leave this one for the time being.

So, now I’m stuck with a bit of a conundrum about what should be done with these balls of yarn. I would really like to use them to make something, so I’ve chosen two more possible knitting patterns. The first pattern is for a pair of Adult Booties from the book Knitty Gritty: The Next Steps by Aneeta Patel. I’ve already made a pair using a skein of yarn from Island Sweet Fibre Arts, so it wouldn’t be too hard for me to make them again. The other pattern is for something slightly different. I found a design online at Craftsy.com for a knitted hexaflexagon by Heather Anne Ordover. This is an intriguing design that uses three different colours of yarn to make a quirky toy that changes colour each time you fold it.

So, if you had some über difficult yarn leftover and still wanted to make something out of it, which design would you pick?

Booties

                 vs.                   

Hexaflexagon

Let me know – I’ll try to make the one that gets the most votes and post my results for you online!