Beaten by yarn, dammit!

Morgan - I hope you are feeling better soon. It is such a dreadful time to get the lurgy as well. I hope you are being properly looked after. I am sending hugs.

As for cancan yarn - I have looked at it warily. Normally I try and stick to 1p per gramme, so it is a bit much for me. But I may yet get giddy, especially if I can get a good deal.

I have just had a sobering lesson, however, from some pom pom yarn. It's not the expensive Rico stuff that is a LOT more than 1p per gramme. It is a more economical version, but still the big pompoms with string between them. You can't cast on, you just have to wrap the yarn around the needle. That took nerve, but I started off okay. Six stitches give a width of around six inches, so the scarf (pattern from the ball band) grew quickly. Actually I was quite enjoying it.

Then little bear shouted at me, as he was bored with me just knitting and not cuddling him (he is not so poorly today but no-one else has any energy to wear him out) and grabbed the knitting. He was suitably reprimanded and I only lost a few rows before being able to pick it up and carry on. Then I tried to cast off. Dearie, dearie me. If little bear hadn't been in the room I would have turned the air blue. As far as I can tell the instructions in English were translated from the German by someone who doesn't really speak either language well but has a cheap English/German dictionary. It didn't work the first time, and trying to undo and pick up was a mare. The second time it didn't work and I managed to pick up from a bit further down. The third time I had to frog the lot.

So I settled down with evil mutterings to have another go. If I can get the hang of it, one scarf will probably only take an hour. However the yarn had got tangled. That in itself is not a problem. I used to buy bangs of tangled aran and double knitting from Leeds market and spend happy hours untangling and winding them, safely away from felines. They were often less than 1p per gramme and I had some really lovely wool and cotton mixes from there. But if you have thin yarn with thick blobs two inches long you have a problem untangling. It all sort of winds around yourself and if the loops get pulled tight you can't pull the free end through because it is full of thick blobs.

I am seriously considering writing off the yarn because I cannot untangle it. It is currently a good contender for the next Dr Who monster. And it was around £4 - a moment of madness that I am beginning to regret.