Yarnspinners Tales

The Fiber Stash Goddess

was good to me this last weekend. I didn't knit fast enough and ran out of the handspun alpaca yarn before the scarf was long enough. I considered the idea of using another yarn, and adding to both ends with that. I had an idea of taking a white yarn as a block around a heart design in the original color. Time was too short though to be designing on the fly, and in a last ditch effort, I went through my roving stash, and wonders of wonders, found about four more ounces of the same color.

I probably would not have found it, if I had not just recently sorted the fibers into types. It was in a larger bag, like it had been part of the original pound of roving. I truly doubted by luck to find the exact color (since alpacas come in a LARGE variety of colors) I kept laying that roving, and the yarn I spun from it against the scarf, daring it to be any bit different. It wasn't.

I split that roving in half, spun each half on a bobbin, and plied it. It turned out to be a bit bigger in WPI than the original yarn, probably because I was speed spinning (IE not paying that much attention, just making yarn) I took the plied yarn and washed it and set it in front of a fan to dry Sunday night. I only needed to do four more repeats, the eight row border, and then fringe. I made over 100 yards of 2 ply and used about 80 of those yards.

This all happened of course because I really did not have a clue how much yarn I would need for the scarf. I found the pattern, cast on what looked like enough repeats for a scarf width, and started knitting with the yarn I had. It was close, but not enough.

I prefer to create with a little less pressure in the future, but for once, the stash was there when I needed it.

CW