Tuesday 17 April 2012

Will it, won't it?

So remember I told you I had 20g of the Fyberspates yarn left after knitting the cardi and hat? I really wanted to use every scrap as it is such yummy soft yarn, but what to make with such a small amount? The thought process went kind of:
.....20g can't make much and I don't want to knit away and run out near the end. If I knit something that can be be made in two halves at least I can measure one to be sure I want run out on the second. Mitts with matching card is a bit...hmm...woolly overload, so maybe footwear?"
So I cast on using a very old Woolworths' knitting booklet:


I knitted away and getting towards the leg part realised I didn't have an awful lot left. I decide to leave the pattern and make a little roll cuff finish instead. It looked very sweet but I was a bit wary of how much yarn was left. Still if there was less than half at least I'd only wasted an hour knitting up one, rather than longer and running out. So I grabbed the scales hoping for it to flash up with less than 10g for the weight of the finished piece. And you know what? It weighed...............10g exactly! The length of yarn left weighed exactly the same. Well that wasn't as great as I'd hoped! Now I would have to cast on the second bootee and hope that the finished 10g bootee was just on the 10g, not 10.4g, or 10.5g, but 10g exactly. And of course that the 10g remaining was at least 10g, maybe 10.5g, or even 10.2g,  as long as it was exactly, or more than, the amount used for the first bootee.
So I cast on, knitted frantically, not once daring to look at the dwindling amount, all the while wondering if I could tweak the first bootee further and skip a row somewhere.  And you know what? This is what I ended up with:


Do you want to see what was left? Here you go:


Could it have been much closer? John very kindly asked why I had worried, why not just get another skein of the yarn? Well I couldn't tell him how much just one skein costs, could I? He still lives in the world where yarn costs a couple of pounds for enough to knit a whole jumper, where it's more economical to knit your own than to buy....... He knows I have some nicer yarns, but I don't think he knows what a short distance they actually go. You and I on the other hand, well we know don't we? We know that getting all of these from just one £15 skein of Fyberspates handpainted sock yarn is totally worth every stitch and every penny :)


So the crafting hiatus is over, I'm back with a vengeance. In fact I might even be back in a day or two with a completely different finished knit, something I'm already working my way excitedly through.

-x-

4 comments:

Nicole said...

You got very lucky! We'll call it still though ;-) I'm with you on the price secret, my other half thinks I buy cheap acrylic (99% of the time I do!) so he assumes the other lovely stuff is the same - foooled!

Your booties are beautiful, I'm very impressed by how much you got out of that yarn, the cardie and hat are really cute too :-)

Shazronnie said...

Wow! That was close! The bootees are lovely. They wouldn't be half as nice in 99p yarn!

Mad Madam Mel said...

there is something very satisfying about using up every last bit of yummy yarn :) bet you could get a mini crochet flower broach from those trimmings lol

Anonymous said...

Awww, that is a really cute set of baby clothing :) Well done you for using it up so well x x