Arts as Astra

Finished DS1's scarf last night. Red, of course. And he asked for fringe, so I indulged him even though I dislike fringe on scarves. (What's so great about fringe on scarves anyway??) I figure it won't be long until he thinks mom-made knits are dorky, so I gotta knit for him while I still can.

Many years ago, I acquired 4 balls of a yarn called "Java," a rayon-acrylic-silk blend, from the oddments bin at a yarn store in Britain. At the time, I was an intern at HP Labs in Bristol, England, and part of my job was to learn Java, so I thought this was really funny, and kept a ball in my cubicle for amusement value.

Some years later, I encountered more of the same yarn, albeit differently packaged, in the discount pile in a store here in the States. Great! I thought, now I have enough to make a sweater.

I finally pulled it all out a few weeks ago, intending to make a nice cardigan with a nifty multicolored slip stitch pattern to combine the yarn, all of various colors, together. It's pretty yarn. It's mercerized, has a nice drape to it when it's knit up, and feels nice and smooth against the skin.

This has got to be the tangliest yarn I have ever worked with.

You'd think that a nice non-fuzzy yarn like this wouldn't have such problems, but no. It ties itself up into the most complicated knots imaginable. I once put my work down on top of a spare ball, and ended up spending a good 15 minutes untangling the whole mess because half the yarn on the ball decided to fall off and get wild with the work-in-progress.

It doesn't help that the pattern I've chosen requires that I work with three balls of yarn at a time. And that I throw it all into a tote bag between talks. I swear I spend more time detangling the thing than knitting.

So why am I putting up with it? Go re-read the title. I have some knitting to get back to.