I've been reading my way through Stephanie Peal-McPhee (The Yarn Harlot)'s books this month, having just finished Free Range Knitter: The Yarn Harlot Writes Again. In it she writes that

A more appropriate sentiment I could not find this week.

To be fair on myself, it's not that my taste has necessarily changed, or that my taste in yarn used to be inherently bad. Rather, I am now better able to see an unknit ball of yarn and know, pre-agony, that I am simply going to hate the way it knits up. This is all very well and good while procuring shiny new yarn - but is utterly useless in my attempt to knit my way through my stash.

I've been hoarding this one particularly skein of sock yarn for about four years now. It made me happy to see it amongst my stash because I thought the skein so pretty. But more and move over the past few months (as the skein came to rest on top of the stash mountain), I've found myself looking at it with increased wariness. Suddenly the colours, which I had previously thought so beautiful seemed too stark in contrast. My (granted limited) maths skills kicked in and I saw the gradient I had once imagined contract and disappear.

Biting the bullet I decided to see if I was merely paranoid. Picking out something from my queue, I cast on the Orchid Cowl, hoping that the sizable stockinette panels would absorb some of the colour changes. I may have been right, but I'll never know because I never made it through the first lace section. The colour changes came even quicker than I had anticipated and that colouration over a lace panel had my eyes hurting and my yarn rage fuming.


Some told me to stick with it, but when Lisa agreed with my pain that project was frogged quick smart.

Still, I was determined to win - mainly because I had two hours to fill in with nothing but this yarn. Clearly this colour was too bright for anything pattern intensive. Surely garter stitch was the answer - a nice simple shawl in garter stitch, then it could be as colourful as I liked. I hit up Ravelry and, surrounded as I was by the library's calming rows of books, I set aside my previous grievances and cast on something simple. But with each row I just felt stronger about how much I hated this yarn and it didn't last very long either.



I should be clear - the yarn itself was lovely to work with. It was soft and the colours were vibrant. it did not split, nor fray (even despite the multiple restarts). It just wasn't the colourway for me. Thankfully, in an act of kindness (and perhaps concern for my mental well being), Wendy has taken the yarn away. I wish her better luck with it!

I always enjoy when craft night comes around again - not because I enjoy the crafting (I do!) or because it means seeing my friends (of course I do, this goes without saying!) but because I get to refer to it as my 'rager night'. It's the night that I stay out past midnight and get up to all kinds of shenanigans with my friends. Crocheting and consuming tea counts as 'shenanigans', right?

We aim to have our craft night, our Block of the Month or BotM night (cue many giggles around the world 'bottom' every time), once a month. Unfortunately the last time we managed any degree of consistency in this regard was around the time all three of us turned up with our assigned blocks in hand - so... some time ago. It was sad for us to learn that our last craft night was a whopping 18 weeks ago (thank you instagram for providing the timeline). That life has become too busy for our crochet nights just means that we need them all the more.

This month yielded no BotM squares, save a few paltry unblocked offerings from myself (I think I've lost my blocking pins an a subconscious attempt to allay my guilt over my non existence blocking ability). Despite this, however,the night was far from unproductive. We had birthday celebrations and gift giving, lessons in Ravelry (I think my attempt to convert them needs a little more work), good conversation, and, yes, even a little crafting.

Wendy worked on her mood blanket (reminding me that I am still woefully behind) and showed off the beautiful scarf she's crocheting out of Noro Sekku.

I think Renae surprised herself a little with the rate at which she flew through a knitting scarf, knitted up on size 15 needs. She has now finished it and looks very pleased with herself!

I was the least productive of the group, working away on the second incarnation of a shawl, only to rip that back also (my rage over this to appear in a post of it's very own). Throw in a thorough spoiling by Matt in his providing of watermelon sorbet (yum!) and I just know you'd agree that we had a wonderful craft evening.