Maybe This Time

Some days, I seriously question the whole knitting thing.

Take this yarn for example. No matter how it looks on your screen, in real life it's a rich, clear red without the slightest hint of brown or orange, something that's extraordinarily difficult to find.

It's been in the stash for years. I bought it at a deeply discounted price because it was the only skein, the label was missing and no one at the LYS knew much about it. Theoretically it's a mix of wool and cotton, but if that's true, it contains far more cotton than wool (my guess: 90% cotton, 10% wool).

Now for the true confessions: I've spent countless hours trying to find a use for this single skein of bargain-buy yarn. If we ran a cost-benefit analysis on this particular investment, the numbers would be deplorable.

I thought it would be the ideal contrast to some lovely blue-gray Cotton Fleece, which was slated for another reversible Breidan afghan. The colors were perfect together, but there just wasn't enough red yarn to make it work the way I'd envisioned. 

The strip was frogged, and the yarn was rewound.

Because it looked lovely in the cable rib stitch, I reknit it into a Last-Minute Cowl. I was so sure this would work, I used small bits of the one precious skein for accent stripes on my Last-Minute Mitts. The goal was to create a mix-and-match set consisting of the red neckwarmer and complementary fingerless mitts. As beautiful as this yarn is, it simply wasn't soft enough to snuggle around my neck on a cold winter day.

The mitts are worn regularly, but the neckwarmer was frogged.

So here we are. The yarn has been reknit yet again. Theoretically it's destined to become part of another Drumlin afghan featuring the reversible fluted ridge stitch. The last version featured gem tones, but if all goes as planned, this one will emphasize neutrals with a slim strip of red for a pop of color.

My rational knitter's head remains skeptical. Meanwhile, my delusional knitter's heart 
says ... maybe this time.