Knitting disasters come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Fortunately, my latest race down that road was not as bad as it could have been. My first mistake was agreeing to a deadline for the latest SnK swap. On one hand, I thrive under pressure and often employ productive procrastination to get me closer to a deadline. However, knitting does not fall into this category for me, which is why I'm not a holiday knitter. Regardless, a pair of mittens was the task, and we had about a month to complete them - no sweat. I waited until last week to start because I had the perfect stash yarn to use for the project and it was sitting in my folks basement (hey, I'm a New Yorker, we all use what storage we can!). Still no problem, I envisioned a pair of chunky cabled mittens using two strands of a local handspun merino, in a pattern I've knit up before. I was even going to sew on some beads for added embellishment. Green hands (yarn bleed, ick) and two mismatched mittens later (the result of knitting the second in the absence of the first all while getting my hair colored), I simply couldn't deconstruct the smaller of the two thanks to seaming with the most break-prone yarn ever. They sort of felted up while being knit and it simply wasn't going to happen.
Now it's a couple days before I've got to pop these babies in the mail, and I'm totally mittenless. Last night I made an emergency run to Knitty City and probably spent the most time ever choosing yarn. I know my recipient likes turquoise and wool, so I picked up the yummiest handpainted Dream in Color Groovy, and cast one once again. It's smooth, strong and beautiful (at $20 a skein, it should be!). In fact, I already feel inspired to knit myself another pair in the same yarn - it's that nice. Of course, I'll be receiving a pair of mittens, too, so no hasty yarn purchases appear in my future.
There is a silver lining, however, and this fiasco just follows what I've always believed - when one thing doesn't work out, something better comes along. I'm now working up much prettier mittens in a yarn that is a joy to knit, all the while my hands remain their natural color. Also, I reworked the pattern in the round so I won't have any seaming to do. I still think adding beads would look fabulous, but I may not have enough time. And that's what it always comes down to - time. What happened to the days of patrons - isn't there someone out there who would like to support me financially so I may spend my days knitting?
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