A Cautionary Tale
It was only a matter of time before my luck–and my yarn–ran out. After years of completing projects with only a few feet of yarn left over, I finally cut it too close.
Yup, just 6 stitches stood between me and completion. Buying more yarn wasn’t an option both because this Kidsilk Haze has been in my stash forever and because I needed to mail the finished cowl the next day.
While I pondered my options, my eye wandered to the cast-on edge. My, that’s an awfully long tail of yarn. Maybe I can put it to good use.
A little spit splicing and I was good to go. This is what I had left before weaving in the ends.
And this is what was left after the ends were woven in.
As my friend Shelley would say, “There’s not even enough to tie a knot.”
Project: Lace Capelet (knit from the neck-down instead of the bottom-up). Details are on my Ravelry project page.
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20 comments Susan | knitting
Better to be lucky than good. What’s it like being both?
xo
Talk about finishing by the skin of your teeth! Wowza!
Only you. The cowl is beautiful!
Whew! Looks great! Thank goodness for long tails!!
Completely unsurprising.
Bananas.
Only you, S.
Yikes!
Great finish! It’s beautiful. Is that a silver stick pin in there?
Wowser!
Beautiful, but talk about cutting it close …
Your luck continues!!! I just finished another Fog Lifter – need to block it and I bought two of your kits this past weekend.
Haha! I’ve used that cast-on tail before! It’s coming very close to MacGyvering in my book! That cowl looks wonderful — so light and airy.
Now that is the way to use all of your yarn. I will have to try that next time!
This is not for this project… but I cannot comment on the 2007 one anymore. I just wanted to say THANK YOU! Your bind-off on the Palindrome Scarf. I had made one and tried to do a normal bind-off (being new to knitting did not know it would not match. Only been knitting for 3 months and teaching myself with youtube, and blogs.) I put fringe on it to hide it, but hated the fringe. Then I found your blog and you saved my scarf! At the time I was making a second one just like it in the hope I would fine a way to bind- off, so you saved two scarves! So again, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU! You are my new knitting hero!
Phew! Nice save!
You are very smart to consider your cast-on yarn as material to be used in an emergency. This is one of the reasons I save all my extra yarns (even the big knots in the middle of skeins that make me so mad I cut them out and splice yarn back when in the middle of a project) – one never knows when untangling that mess of knots will be the only option!
Kudos!
Wow. I probably would never have thought of that. The finished piece looks amazing!
I’m a relatively new knitter and while this hasn’t happened to me yet – we both know it will. I’ve read somethings about weighing yarn in order to make a Baktus scarf (on Ravelry) and not running out of thread. Would that method not work for other things also. So when I get to half way in weight I know I am half way in knitting. Don’t think that would have helped with this would it?
Very clever! Thanks for sharing, this sort of thing happens to me all the time. As much as I love buying/using/creating yarn, I cannot stand buying another ball knowing I will only use part of it. This is a great idea
I’ve finally had to chance to hop around the blogs and catch up with what everyone is doing and I just have to tell you how beautiful your capelet is. Very nice.