2013 Starts Tomorrow

I know what the calendar says. I've noticed that all the perfume commercials on tv in December have been replaced by weight loss ads. And I choose to ignore it. Tomorrow is when I will officially begin 2013. You can call it procrastination, but it's probably more along the lines of denial.

You see, I've been happily knitting the lining of my Senor Ardilla (aka Squirrel Sampler) mittens since last week and they've been coming along nicely. I finished knitting the lining of the first mitten and I started the lining of the second one on Sunday during the Patriots game, as this is my official football knitting project (and has been since December 2010, think what you will).  Today El Esposo and I sat down to watch the Rose Parade. (We were waiting for the band from El Salvador, but, oh, the reunion of the Pazz family stole the show.) I was working on the thumb gusset and I kept telling El Esposo that things did not look right to me. Because I knit the largest size mitten, I am using the lining yarn, Misti Alpaca Lace, doubled, per the pattern instructions. (Note: Pattern calls for Misti Alpaca Lace Canada, and I used Misti Alpaca Lace. Both have 437 yards per 50 gram put up.) And I bought twice as many skeins as the pattern required. This is my first time knitting with this yarn, and I bought these two skeins specifically for this project and have used them, doubled, exclusively on this project. And this was the result at the end of the parade:

The skein on the top is almost finished, while I have lots of yarn in the skein on the bottom. I also have more than half of the lining to knit. And this color of Misti Alpaca Lace has been discontinued, and is not available in most shops. There are two people on Ravelry who have this stashed and are willing to sell or trade, but they have multiple skeins, so it's not likely that either will want to part with just one. Hmmmm. . . sounds like some math is coming on. . .

I have 12 grams of the original 50 left on this skein. I have no idea whether that's enough to finish the mitten because I don't know whether the skein was actually 50 grams when I bought it. If it was, then I would estimate that I used about 35 grams lining the first mitten, so this won't be enough for the second mitten. I will need approximately 20 grams more to complete the lining on the second mitten.

If this skein was more than 50 grams when I bought it, then, well, it hurts my brain to try to figure it out, so I won't. Too many variables in that one. I could attempt to weigh the lining of the first mitten, but it's attached to the mitten and you know I'm not going to rip it out. I worked too long and hard for that to happen.

So, I moved on to weighing the second skein. There is less than one gram left. At this point, I got supremely irritated. There is a discrepancy of over 11 grams between two 50 gram skeins of yarn. So I bought either 111 grams of yarn (50g + 61g) or 89 grams of yarn (50g + 39g), provided that one skein was actually 50 grams, as per the label.

Either way, I'm aggravated and don't want to start 2013 out feeling aggravated. I'm not sure whether the discrepancy is due to poor quality control at Misti Alpaca or whether some unscrupulous knitter who also shops at The Yarn and Fiber Company knit 11+ ounces of this yarn, slipped the ball band back on it, and returned it to the store figuring no one would be the wiser. Those are the only two options I can figure. 

I finally found a shop online that sells the yarn, so I ordered one more skein, which should get me through the rest of the mitten lining. And I *will* be slipping off the ball band and weighing that skein when it arrives in the mail. In fact, I'm probably going to be weighing skeins of yarn compulsively for quite some time. So, if you see a crazy woman with a gram scale weighing skeins of yarn when you are out and about, be sure to say hello to me.

Comments

[BronxGrrl]

That kind of thing drives me nuts. Who can you trust if you can't trust the ball band on your yarn?

[Britt]

That is a crazy discrepancy. I know you already bought your replacement, but next time think about checking Rav projects that used up partial skeins. Many people (me included) forget to put partial skeins in the details, but I bought 'leftover' yarn off of someone to finish my epic shawl last year.

[Karen]

That does seem like a bit much to be an error at the factory...