it is finished

The bolero from hell. The PITA (painintheass) poncho. The diabolical skein of ribbon yarn has been vanquished. But is it done with me? No. The bloody thing still smells like smoke, after I washed it twice in gentle shampoo. I am more than pissed. I am proud of myself but I am seething at the same time. Proudly seething, that's me. I am so glad I am done with it. I think I listened to about three books on tape from start to finish, and more than that to get things untangled and unraveling bits I shouldn't have done. I don't mind unraveling, because I know I am not going to half-ass my way through the pattern.

The name of the pattern was "Short and Sweet," in The Happy Hooker book. The pattern itself was quite easy to figure out--the motif was written out in symbols so I didn't have to worry about typos in the other part of the pattern. The Stitch-n-Bitch books are notoriously loaded with errors, and require careful reading of the errata pages online to make sure things are kosher.

I was so afraid of running out of yarn for this, I just can't tell you. I read the yardage required but I didn't believe it. I don't ever EVER want to buy this yarn again. It looks wonderful, feels divine, but I haven't had to do this much babysitting of a fiber in my life. Does that make sense, babysitting a fiber? Well let's say this was the Paris Hilton of yarn. Beautiful, yes, but try working with it.

Two things that saved my life with this project I learned at the Knit and Crochet Show this past weekend in King of Prussia, PA. I went to a class by Lily Chin, knitting/crochet superstar, and I don't think I have ever learned this much stuff in 3 hours. I love learning shortcuts, different ways to use old things, elegant solutions. Well, she told us how to keep ribbon yarn from getting super-twisted as you work. Shove a huge knitting needle through a shoebox, through the skein, and back out the shoebox so you have essentially a yarn TP dispenser. Works pretty well--not great but still better than before. The other thing I used a lot with this project was weaving in reeeeeeeally short ends into the work to finish it. Sometimes the tail of the yarn isn't long enough to thread the needle AND tuck into the piece. So she said to poke the needle into wherever you want the thread to go, THEN thread the needle and pull it all through. Fricking brilliant. This stuff is so bloody slippery that the yarn would just fall right out of the yarn needle, but smaller, sharper needles would poke the microfiber and be impossible to pull through without yucky pulls. Ah. Sigh.

So I am done with it. It is now drying/blocking on a towel in my studio, and I am wondering what to do about the smell. I don't want to smell like I just came out of a skeezy nightclub, don't know about you, and I already wrote the owner of the yarn company about it. She said that they absolutely NEVER exposed any fibers to cigarette smoke. Hm. Maybe. Perhaps it is the dye they used--does that smell funky ever? I know vinegar is part of mordant, but whenever I have dyed anything it never came out smelling like grandma's ashtray.