After a successful mission that day to find the perfect yarn in the perfect quantity (1,500 yards) for the upcoming Secret of the Stole ii KAL, and have the yarn ready in time to start in just a couple of days, the knitter sits at her table, happily winding her four fresh, new hanks of mmmmmm-Malabrigo Laceweight (in the Roanoke colorway) into luscious little cakes. She is reveling in the yarny goodness as she winds, thinking how much the softness and scrumptious chocolate color of the yarn makes it look good enough to eat!
She winds the first two cakes with no problem. While winding the third hank, she spies an unsightly knot in the yarn (grrrrr----knots!). But undaunted, she considers herself lucky that she saw it then, rather than happening upon it while knitting. She cuts the yarn at the knot like a good knitter should, and winds the remainder into an extra baby cake. Knots are always irritating, but no big deal.
She's in the home stretch now, and reaches for the final hank of yarn to finish her winding. As she gently untwists the hank and places it onto the swift, she spies two little ends pop out from amongst the strands. Hmmm.... A little unusual, but maybe the knot holding the ends of the hank together simply came untied.
As she continues to straighten the yarn on the swift, she suddenly sees two...no, three! more ends come popping out from amongst the strands. Cr*p! THIS certainly can't be good! Now feeling the uneasiness of an impending disaster but still living in hopeful denial, she thinks, "don't panic, just see where the ends are coming from---maybe some extra strands got mixed in...." Her hopes began to fade as two more ends popped out, then another, then another.....Well, now you get the picture.
The disaster continued to unfold in full, as the knitter realized that to her horror, this particular little hank of Malabrigo was a mutant of some kind, or had been attacked by a group of selectively-chewing aliens who only attack skeins of yarn of which there are limited quantities, and which were purchased at a store the longest possible distance from the knitter's home.
As the knitter continued to search the yarn on the winder, she found a total of twelve cut or broken ends within the skein!! CRAP! (did I say that already?) Obviously the yarn was unsalvagable. In the words of Bart Simpson, "Wow, that both sucks and blows!"
Here's a live shot of the ugliness, only shown here because proof of tragedies must be preserved for posterity. I'll understand if you must turn away at the sight of it:
(The little pieces of tape are to mark the ends as they emerged. The two little butterflies sitting on the center of the swift are four of the ends which I managed to match with their opposite ends before I gave up the rescusitation efforts.)
Very sad. What a horrible fate to befall such a young, beautiful hank of Malabrigo at such a young age, before it had time to reach it's potential as part of a lovely stole.
However, In a happy turn to the story, victory rises from the ashes! The only remaining hank of the same dye lot family was located, and was exchanged for the lifeless clump of strings. In loving memory of it's unfortunate, savaged sibling, the new hank of Malabrigo will step in to fulfill it's destiny as part of the new stole.
(And the knitter's sanity was preserved. Since the ruined hank of yarn was the last one wound, she would be unable to return the remaining yarn because she had already wound it all. She would then have to purchase new yarn in sufficient quantity to knit the stole....phew!)
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