Yarn Barf

 

        A few years ago a friend gave me a two pound cake of chunky yarn for my birthday.  It is lovely yarn with shades of purple and lavender running to white and then a pale green. The problem was I had no idea what to do with it. It was too much yarn for some projects and not enough yarn for other projects. It sat in the bag it came in for months while I waited for inspiration. 

        One day scrolling aimlessly though patterns, I found the right one. It was a blanket. This was perfect because, in this case, size does not matter. The stitch pattern was easy and would look good with the varied colours in the yarn. The only thing I needed was the correct size and type of needles. 

        I wanted to make the blanket a size in between the choices offered in the pattern so I deliberately cast on the wrong number of stitches. It took me while to figure out the pattern as I wasn't following exactly. The beginning for the blanket looks a bit wonky, but I don't care. I had already restarted twice. I was not going to do it again. 

        The blanket was soothing to work on and the chunky yarn made  it look soft and cozy. I enjoyed working on it and spent as much time as I could working on. Most of the time when I knit, I pull the yarn from the outside of the cake. I couldn't find the outside strand so I had to pull it out from the middle.

        When this happens the structure of the cake collapses as yarn is pulled out and you get a tangled mess known as a "yarn barf". I was hoping that if I left the cake in the bag and didn't move it, it wouldn't get tangled. It did. Although I did my best, I had several tangled messes. I was going to have to wind it.

        I cut my yarn as close to the first tangle as I could and got the blanket out of the way. With more frustration than patience, I started to untangle the yarn winding it as I went. This was the worst of the tangles. I tried to keep it loose as I worked so that there would not be any tight knots. The yarn was also rubbing on itself too much which was causing it to pill and to stick together. After about an hour and a half of work I had wound much of the first tangle, but had a knot that was too tight to unwind. I had to cut the yarn again. It was nearly 11 o'clock and well past my bedtime. I retied the yarn and went to bed.

        The next evening, I started work again. The yarn was looser and easier to work with. My only challenge is that the ball was getting too large for my hand. I kept winding carefully pausing to fix my ball if the yarn started to sip off. There were no more tight knots and I didn't have to cut the yarn again. I found the other end of my ball and started to work the yarn from that end. It took another hour and a half, but now I have a ball of yarn that won't fall apart.

        It was a frustrating and rewarding experience untangling the yarn. I learned a few things. The first is to find the strand at the side of the cake. The second is that being impatient does not help anything. The third is that persistence is a virtue. Now I can continue knitting and finish the blanket.