What the hell were they drinking when they created this yarn?
"Hey Bubba, let's come up with a yarn that has weird nubs in it and is weak and breaks easily."
"Billy Bob that sounds great. But let's also make it overlly twisted so that it continually knots up on itself when you try to knit with it."
"That's awesome. Bubba, you're so smart."
"Thanks, Billy Bob. Now pass me another beer."
That had to be how the conversation went, because that is the only way to explain this strange yarn. This yarn has been in my stash for years. I bought it at a thrift store for like a buck. It came in five unrulely skeins which when I saw how tangled the yarn was in the bag I should have known then that this yarn had issues.
Being an equal opportunity yarn lover, I brought the yarn home, untangled the mess and placed my lovely new skiens in its new stash home. Within hours these little she-devils had managed to tangle and twist themselves around my once beautiful stash. My wools were on edge. The acrylics were stessed out and my cottons started drinking.
After repeated attempts to try to straighten out the situation and make this new yarn understand the house rules it continously rebelled, bullied the other yarns, stayed out passed curfew and sneaked boys into the house when I wasn't home. I eventually had no choice but to regulate it to a large ziploc bag.
When I finally decided to swatch this devil-child yarn to see how it knits it was a total nightmare. The yarn hates knitting needles of all sizes and types and fights any attempt at structure and form.
I brought this problem yarn before my knitting friends and they had many helpful suggestions on what I should with it: Burn it. Throw it away. Donate it back to the thrift store where you found it. Use it as stuffing in a kid's toy. Hide it at the bottom of your stash for your grandchildren to deal with when you pass away.
I concluded to just do nothing with it. For years it has sat in my stash becoming an ever growing jungle of string in its plastic prision.
Then, finally on an uneventful day I decided that there was not such thing as a yarn that couldn't be used. So I dug out the plastic bag and started the long process of trying to untangle the haystack that my yarn had now turned into.
It fought with me, knotting up in several places and retwisting itself into golf size knots that refused to come untangled. Yet, I did not give up the fight. I would win this war or die trying.
When I was finally able to make it resemble some sort of managable yarn ball I allowed my fingers to grab whatever needles it thought best. My hands grabbed a pair of short size 5 straights in red. Without any set plan or reason, I started to knit.
Still just as difficult as the day I first got it I vowed to not let its nubs, knots and tangles stop me. Now after a few rows I have finally found a life for this yarn. It shall be a scarf. All of it. I will not stop knitting it until I get to the end. It will have knots and nasty nubs sticking out everywhere, but I don't care. I will make this yarn my bitch. It will be a scarf for its own damn good. And I shall name this scarf, 'Misbehaving Badly'.
So I say to all knitters out there with an unrulely yarn that makes you want to reach for the bottle of SoCo every time you look at it, grab that yarn by the neck and with all anger and hatred you have towards it, look that yarn in the fiber and say, 'I'm not your bitch, bitch!' Then grab some needles and show the yarn who's its daddy by knitting that hiffer into an honorable scarf.
A bitch of a yarn can always be turned into a bitchin' scarf.
