The main project that I’ve been knitting on recently has been the Ishbel scarf, and I was using some really lovely soft, squishy yarn for it: some BFL sockweight by Nimu.
[thumb:1150:c:t=]
Isn’t it preeeeeeeeeetty? I know you can’t see it terribly well in that picture because it’s only some of the stocking stitch portion. But trust me, it’s lovely – the colour of ripe blackberries. The pattern calls for 300m of yarn, the skein was 365m. I used the suggested needle size because I liked the drape of the fabric that gave me, although it put my gauge a little bit off. That’s not important in a scarf, triangular or not, right? Well, I knitted all of the stocking stitch section, and thought I still had plenty of yarn. The I started on the lace charts: chart A, then B, then as I started A again I began to get a bit worried. I kept going though. Right up until I ran out of yarn with essentially 8 rows to go. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!
Has my dodgy gauge has eaten more yarn, or something? I’m not sure that makes sense – I haven’t knitted more stitches, after all. I’ve got more stitches to the inch than I should have: that means that to get suggested gauge, I’d have to go up a needle size or two, thus making larger stitches, and therefore less per inch. My stitches are smaller, so they should be using less yarn, right? The resulting scarf must be a bit smaller than intended, that’s all.
As I see it, I have a couple of choices: rip out the whole thing (noooo!) and start again with different needles or yarn, or knit the remaining few rows in something else. But what? I only have this one skein of lovely Nimu ‘Striding Edge’ BFL, and I love the way it’s feeling so much that I do want to use if for this project. Bah. My first instinct is to edge it in a black yarn, since it’s such a dark colour to start with. But the only black yarn I have in what to my naked eye looks like a comparable thickness (I mentioned that it’s a very squishy sockweight, and it’s relatively loose-spun) is acrylic DK. No. I also have some similarly squishy sock yarn by the Yarn Yard – their merino ‘Hug’ yarn, in a couple of colours that might do:
[thumb:906:c:t=Mysterion][thumb:612:c:t=Damson][thumb:823:c:t=Damson knit up]
I don’t know which, if either, would be better though. So I’m posting a poll. Help meeeeeee!
[poll id=”3″]
You know what’s really annoying, though? This is the fourth time I’ve run out of yarn on a project recently. I must be doing something wrong.
