#*%!@$!

I'm full of rage. Don't you love spending an entire day working on something only to have it be a complete waste?

I have this book, One Skein Wonders. It has patterns contributed by various different yarn shops; the two patterns I've used happened to be from the same person, but both of them worked out quite well. There is a simple top-down raglan shrug I've wanted to make since I got the book, so I got a skein of Rowan Kid Classic for it Saturday and cast on this morning. I had to go up two needle sizes but I managed to get gauge exactly.

As I completed the raglan shaping, I thought, Gee, this pattern is going to use every bit of the yarn. As I worked through the sleeves I thought, I think I might have to shorten it by a few rows so I don't run out of yarn. As I bound off the sleeves, I decided to measure what yarn I had left for the eleven remaining body and hem rows, plus binding off. Two yards. Two freaking yards!! That wasn't even enough to bind off the first of the eleven rows that were left.

I swore. I swore a lot. I used a particularly mean term to refer to the pattern designer. Normally I'd have headed out to the LYS to get another ball of yarn, but I happen to know I got the last one they had in this color, let alone dye lot.

The funny thing is that I only started the shrug as a fun little break from my Knucks -- I finished the thumb gusset of the second one during defensive driving (I only knit during the breaks), and started the oblique rib cuff when I got home yesterday afternoon. I realized the oblique rib was Not Working Out and frogged the cuff. I did it over in K2P2 with smaller needles, and though it's still loose on my freakishly small wrists, I'm happier with it. But that left me with the formerly completed Knuck with the oblique rib cuff.

So yeah. I need to redo the cuff on Knuck #1 and then I'm done with them (hopefully tonight). I also got a ball of Noro Silk Garden (yes, I know, I never learn) to make another cap -- this one in blue/green/gray/purple. I'm going to save the Rowan Kid Classic for use in some openwork project or another. I'm not sure if I will re-attempt the shrug with two skeins in another color or not. Right now I'm tempted to order some Wool of the Andes and make myself an actual-factual raglan cardigan.

For what it's worth: I decided it would be disrespectful to the strippers to knit Saturday night. Apparently the new trend in stripwear is legwarmers -- none that I saw were handknit, though.

Lesson learned: sometimes knitting will suck.