A mid-skein crisis

The weekend started with a wonderful Friday that delivered an afternoon of yarn shopping and an evening at the Blue Jackets game, at which my $10 ticket was magically transformed into a view from a box. I got to hang with Kristin and a colleague (and several people there more for the social element than the game on the ice). I had a lot of fun, and the Blue Jackets won on top of it.

I had to work on Saturday, the last for awhile, and was fried after dealing with the production issues and crew inexperience on an exceptionally windy day. When I got home I picked up my knitting and continued to make excellent progress on my second scarf. I even joined skeins without any difficulty. Shortly thereafter I ran into the mess pictured below.


This clump appeared near the end of my last row. Pulling the yarn some more, I saw that there was another one waiting to thwart my project. Uh, okay...what do I do now?

Do you remember the notebook of questions I brought to my second knitting lesson? I hadn't asked about this specific situation, but I assumed that my question about what to do if the yarn breaks was applicable. That said, with the kind of tiring day it had been, I didn't feel like doing something as drastic as cutting the yarn to remove the troublesome mass. I never gave serious thought to knitting it, but I confess, it did cross my mind. Best to leave it for another day, I decided.

Of course, the swollen yarn didn't reduce in size overnight. I didn't want to cut it, but that was the only solution I could see. Two snips later the offending portion was gone, and I knotted the pieces of yarn together. Success!

I was determined to finish the scarf that night, in part because the end was in sight and also because I really wanted to try knitting the purple Katia Duende yarn for my mom's scarf. A couple smaller clumps of the super bulky bright blue acrylic popped up unexpectedly. Right or wrong, I knitted them. There would be no more invasive surgery on this skein except in an emergency. And then, finishing aside, I had my second FO!

Here's a close-up of the stitches. I don't remember if this is from the start or end of the scarf.

Two scarves down, a minimum of five to go. Since I've finished these faster than anticipated, I'm considering knitting some others as Christmas gifts, if time permits. It's been a good feeling to do something for others, although I'm not kidding myself into thinking this is pure altruism. After all, I've been getting the pleasure of knitting.

Truthfully, though, I want to make a scarf for myself. A hat and a pair of warm socks would be good too, but those projects might be beyond my abilities at this time.

Next...facing off with less bulky yarn.