When A Yarn Doesn't Make The Grade It Becomes...

You never really know how a yarn is going to
turn out until it dries...

Well, you never really know how a yarn is going to turn out until, having been spun you soak it and dry it and see what the outcome really is. This time it was... not quite up to snuff.

You see I had such dreams when I was spinning this yarn. The vintage green frilly trim was iffy, but it worked for the most part. The vintage ribbon, yellow velvet with lace edges, not so much. I didn't realize until the yarn had dried that the ribbon would end up falling out everywhere. Groan... The green trim did pretty well, but bits of it were (shudder) hanging out. It did remarkably well for the most part, but not enough so in the end. Sigh...

I don't put a yarn up for sale unless I am happy with it and feel it's a fair offering for the price and I won't sell inferior goods. Now, inferior doesn't mean that the yarn isn't usable, in fact, it may turn out splendidly if used the right way, and for me, when a yarn doesn't match the dream I had when spinning it, I keep it and use it in a free-form fiber art piece.

I had to pull out the ribbon which was hanging on as if by an inch of it's life, and it left tufty-fluffy places in the yarn which made it less than desirable, trimmed a couple of edges of the green diddly-daddle off here and there, and rolled it into a ball...

I set it aside as a yarn that wouldn't go in the shop and then started spinning again. I am spinning a yarn I am very happy with right now and it will be the next to go up in the shop. It is called "Peach Tarts and Plum Pudding at the Mad Hatter's Tea Party." I keep wanting to EAT it! But what to do with my poor "Lemon-Lime Fizzy" yarn (that turned out a little too fizzy for it's own good!)? I started to do what I always do. I started a new free-form piece and there's no way in the world that I can tell you where it's going to end up right now. It will be at the center, I am knitting it with BIG needles and I will start crocheting all the way around the edges of the knitted piece. That's as much as I can tell you right now because it's all I know. As an intuitive artist anything I start may turn into anything at all.

You might, in fact, like to take a look at the new entry I just put up on my main blog, Maitri's Heart. It shows a "knitted tapestry" that I worked on over a long period of time. I had no idea where I was going, I just kept going there. And I'm still amazed at how it turned out. I call this "Surprise Knitting." I guess my whole life is kind of a surprise. I never know what color, texture, or size the next piece of it will be!

So this is the beginning of a new fiber art piece and where it ends up I have no clue, but you can follow it along on this blog and I will show you the piece in stages. It's fun to have a yarn turn out funky and then have it turn into a piece of fabulous (Or so it seems to me!) fiber art. Fun, fun, fun all the way.

So I am sitting here with a pug on my person, surrounded with many types and colors of yarn and knitting needles and crochet hooks galore, as well as big bags of fibers and my big spindle right next to me. It will be a fibery Saturday and I know I will enjoy the calm of the day. Slipping my hands into fiber or winding yarn around my fingers is the utmost earthly delight to me and I shall revel in it all day long.

I hope you are having a happy Saturday wherever you are. If you'd like you can get out some knitting needles and a few different colored balls of yarn and just start randomly knitting. For serious pattern followers (I can't follow a pattern to save my life...) you will probably have a nervous breakdown trying to knit this way and I'd advise you to stick to the patterns. Your work is so beautiful that it has made me wistfully order patterns only to look at them with my eyeballs hanging out because the directions looked like a combination of Greek symbols and higher math (...and I wasn't any good at "lower math"...). I have stopped ordering patterns but still look at them wistfully.

For those who'd like the challenge, even if you're a little uncomfortable, come on in, the water's fine. Remember, it's about process, not product. Take care of the process and it will take care of you in the end.

This yarn is really thick. Size 50 needles might work but I think I'm just going to go ahead and use a couple of piano legs. One must be wildly adventurous and think outside the box to work like this and even if you end up in the loony bin your knitting will be good company. I know it has been for me!

Happy Healthy Knitting to one and all and remember, there are no bad yarns, simply unimaginative people! Let your imagination soar....

Maitri