Half a post

Hello. If you came here via Laura's post , you are most welcome. Please make yourself at home, and avail yourself of my sidebar. I endeavour only to fill it with the finest blogs.

For myself, I am still buried in a pile of exams and revision, and my camera is broken (I dropped it. Sorry camera) so the only story I can tell you is half-finished.

A little while ago, Meowgirl asked me why I'd had to unravel the swatch for my Picovoli. In that instance, I would've had to anyway, since I needed the yarn, but I always rip my swatches*, for the sole reason that I have a slightly debilitating aversion to throwing anything away. I like the idea of keeping all my swatches, and sewing them up into a scrap patchwork blanket, but I like the idea of neat balls of wound yarn in my yarn drawer better, so I tend to do a provisional cast-off, wash and block the swatch with the ball still attached, and then rip it out again and rewind the yarn. Here's a short tutorial on how to put off your revision by winding yarn in the abscence of a niddy noddy, a swift or a ballwinder, or any other knitterly appliance that would make this easier - minus the parts of the narrative that would be helped by either a swift or a ballwinder.

Tie one end of the yarn around a bar of the back of a chair, then wind the rest of the yarn around the chair back.


Untie the end from the chair back, and tie both ends around the skein.

Soak yarn.


Mourn the loss of green dye to your soaking water, and realise that even if you do use this ball of yarn to continue the project you are working on, it may now be a different colour to the rest of the sweater. Remember that a friend who saw you knitting requested a beanie in the same colour, and hope that you come in under the yarn requirement for your project.


Hang yarn over bath, using a meat hook (which, I should add, has never been used for hanging meat), an old piece of wire you've bent into a half-loop, and a hot water bottle or any other weight that isn't too heavy, comes complete with hole for hanging, and is waterproof.




Tune in in a few days to dance the post-exam dance of glee with me, read about winding yarn using a bommy-knocker, and find out what happened to the mystery green yarn.


*With the exception of an altercation I have been having for nearly a year now with some Kidsilk Haze. The swatch almost reduced me to tears, and I fear removed some of the enamel from the inner surfaces of my teeth through grinding. The swatch won and lives in a little ziploc bag as a very inanimate, fluffy pet, while the rest of the yarn taunts me periodically for my inability to turn it into anything.