Wanted: Emergency Yarn

When I first decided that I wanted to knit a shawl for Rebecca's wedding gift, I thought I was going to do a completely different shawl. It was going to be a lovely little Mermaid's Song found in the Unnoffical Harry Potter Knits.  It was going to be lovely and beaded and a challenging knit.

Then things turned ugly as the shawl decided not to cooperate. I messed up the stitch count somehow and I was having trouble knitting the faux nupps found in the pattern. So, I decided to rip it out and start something completely different.

One of the things that people have said that the shawl was lovely, but would I have enough yarn to finish the thing? I assured them that everything would be fine. I would totally have enough yarn to finish it. After all, I was knitting it on big needles to make the pattern light and airy. I kept knitting on it and watching the ball stay the same size. Then parinoia sat in.

What if I did run out of yarn and I didn't have any left? What would happen if I kept knitting and got it the size I wanted to be, but ran out of yarn in the last few rows? Or even worse, run out of yarn during the bind off? Or what if I had to knit the last few rows in the car on the seven hour trip down from Pennsylvania to North Carolina and ran out of yarn in the car and have no ability to even get yarn to finish it?

So I bought another ball and kept it stashed away when it came in.

I just ran out of yarn.

Good thing everyone around me had good instincts. Now I have to go and wind the new skein so I can keep knitting on because I have less than a week left if I want to get it blocked in my house and not in a hotel room.