Evolution of a Neckwarmer

At some point in the last year, my grandmother found herself in a yarn store. As she is a frequent crocheter, this was not an entirely unusual circumstance. While at this store, she found a wonderful (and simple) pattern for a knitted vest. With nary a second thought, she bought the pattern and the required yarn - some very nice Plymouth Baby Alpaca Grande. The problem with this, however, was that my grandmother can't knit. Which is where I come in.

Despite the fact that I was in Grad school at the time and barely had time to go grocery shopping, she asked me if I would knit it for her. I told her I would, but it might be several months before I had the time to get to it. This was fine with her, and several months and one very long road trip later, I handed over the finished project. Now, while the project called for five skeins of yarn, it really only needed 4 and about 2 yards. Thus, I decided to take this left over yarn and see if I had enough to make a quick neckwarmer. I had no idea if I had enough yardage but I made the choice to press onward.

I picked a fairly simple cable and rib pattern and started my knitting (not-really) adventure. As you can see here, with a bad picture in bad lighting, I had a pretty small amount of yarn to work with. I was almost certain I would have to start over with smaller needles or a skinnier pattern.

About halfway through I was still fairly skeptical that I would have enough yarn to finish my original design. At this point, the piece was measuring about 9 inches and I generally try to make my neckwarmers about 18-20 inches long. I was pretty sure I was going to make it to about 16 inches - which really is too short - and find I was going to have to start the whole thing over.

 

However, as I got closer and closer to the end, I realized I just may be able to pull this off! When I finally hit 17 inches and still had a few good yards of yarn left, I may or may not have preformed a small celebratory dance on the couch. Sadly, there are no pictures to document this point of the project.

 

And then the finish! Measuring in at 19 inches with about half and inch of yarn left over, I had a successfully completed neckwarmer on my hands. (And the crowds go wild!) not bad for about two hours of work. All that was left to do was block it to bring out the pattern and add a button - but that will have to wait for another post.

Have you ever had a close call in your knitting and thought you might not have enough yarn? Were you successful - or resourceful?

Casting off,

Megan