Progress on Black Coffee bumped into two roadblocks today, one minute, the other gargantuan. The first: lack of yarn. The second: my need to weigh pros and cons for an hour before spending money on yarn.
Charging along merrily, congratulating myself on not fucking up the cast-on/join-do-not-twist stage, and then admiring some of the nicest ribbing I’ve don, I decided — casually, if you will — to check yardarge requirements. Smarter knitters check before casting on, or at least before making a significant emotional investment in the project. My logic: I had three balls of black wool (Bendigo Woollen Mills Classic 8ply: super big balls) (teeheeheehee), made a jumper (Gytha) and now have one (1). The Coffee Tunic is a sleeveless jumper and therefore requires less yarn than Gytha. I have less yarn than I had for Gytha, therefore I can make the Coffee Tunic. Give three (3) cheers, pass Go, collect $200. Noop. I neglected to consider the following:
- Cabled jumpers, sleeveless and otherwise, use a lot more wool than I usually think they will.
- Jumbo turtlenecks use more wool than I usually think they will.
- The bulk of yarn consumption in a jumper is arguably in the body (unless there’s a unique design feature like a massive hood or a kangaroo pocket build to carry actual kangaroos)
Since the Coffee Tunic has many cables — and rib, which also uses more wool than I usually think it will — and a jumbo turtleneck and a long body, the chances that I would squeeze it out of the single ball of wool I had were never high.
Options:
- Unravel and turn the single ball of yarn into Sexy Vesty, also in my queue.
- Order more yarn to go with my remaining black ball and charge ahead to triumph.
- Use the single black ball I’ve got to make Sexy Vesty and order three more balls to make the Coffee Tunic, thereby ensuring I get both projects and that each comes from a single dye lot.
- Pout a bit about how unfair it is to have to buy wool just because I want to knit something, pull Black Coffee off the needles, measure it against myself, photograph it for the blog, sulk a bit, have an iced tea, and decide to buy the goddamn yarn anyway and put the project back on the needles. Realise option 3 after ordering the yarn. Swear a bit.
Guess which one I chose? Well, not chose. Guess which one is the most accurate description of events?
I have something of an aversion to unnecessary acquisition. This usually manifests itself in healthy ways, but every now and again I let it shoot me in the foot/yarn basket by resisting expenditure at all costs. So even though getting the extra yarn cost me just $24.00, even though I seriously like this pattern and want to wear it as soon as I can; even though I’m going to have a hoot knitting it, like the finished product, and can afford that expenditure, I still had to spend an hour mulling over it. I don’t think cautiousness in spending is bad — especially since I wasn’t holding up traffic or anything, just wandering about the house with a daft look on my face — but I may have lost perspective on the matter. I started weighing up ways I could rearrange the pattern, like economising on cables and increases. Then I yanked it off the needles and realised it was already a really good fit and would make a super nice top when I’m done. I don’t want to change the pattern. I want to make this top. So I’ve bought some more yarn.
I think the fundamental irony that I tried to resist is that I cast on the Coffee Tunic as a reminder that I didn’t need to shell out the big bucks to knit. The cost of the yarn for the dresses I wanted kinda gave me a jolt, and now I have to buy more anyway. Oh well. Rock’n’roll.
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