I, the Yarn Exorcist

A while ago, I had the misfortune to buy some yarn with a hex on it.

It looks so innocent and yet it is BAD. Spun from wool and EVIL

They didn’t tell me it was hexed when I bought it. I mean, to be fair, I don’t think they knew. I don’t think that was the reason it was reduced. I didn’t realise myself, at first. Not until I tried knitting with it.

First I started a Cheadle. I knitted half of it then I accepted emotionally that I wasn’t going to get gauge. What was a little bit strange, though was that however far down I went in needle size, the gauge didn’t actually change. The fabric got thicker, but the gauge was the same. In the end I was producing something so disturbingly thick and hairy it was like the underparts of a Yak who has been doing whatever it is Yaks do through the rough undergrowth non-stop for a month, but it was still 12 stitches to 10cm and not 14 and at that point I gave up and frogged.

Then I made almost all of an Asymmetrical Corrugated Sweater and despite getting gauge perfectly it turned out with a 28” chest measurement. Now, clearly there was something wrong there with either the pattern or my interpretation of it (says she charitably), but, let me do my rant about sizing anyway. The medium size would have produced a 37” chest measurement, on a design which needs about 4” negative ease. In what world is a 33” chest measurement for an adult woman a medium? Well, I will tell you: in the same world as American Apparel sizing. If you look down a few posts you will see a picture of me wearing a black tshirt. Does it look big on me? No it doesn’t. That tshirt is a large. There is one size bigger than that, and then presumably anyone who has a bust measurement greater than about 38-39” can just go whistle because probably they aren’t supposed to exist in the first place. I got that tshirt from Print Liberation who I don’t have any beef with – I love the design, their customer service was great, their postage was reasonable and cheap – but, for God’s sake everybody, please stop printing on American Apparel tshirts and make it easier for me to boycott them, because they may not use sweat shops but their attitude to women is, shall we say, not one I share. That is the end of my rant. It began with knitwear sizing and it turned into I Hate Dov Charney. I bet that happens loads.

Anyway after that, I put the pieces of the Tiny Ludicrous Sweater into a cupboard and I gnawed on my knuckles for a bit, irritably. But, I cannot stay away. I have taken up my hexed yarn once more, I have girded my loins (not with anything from American Apparel, like lurex-loin-girders or something), and I have begun a Shalom Cardigan.

It is always best to begin a new knitting project while reading something challenging and intellectual

I am tempted to say, what can go wrong? Seriously, what can go wrong? It isn’t even meant to meet across the bust, look! It only has to close with one button! Surely even the hexed yarn can produce something with armholes that is at least good enough to keep me warm while I am digging over my borders?

We are one pattern repeat in and as yet it has not spontaneously combusted and/ or magically become half the size it should be

Well, we will wait and see. But if I am back doing a post in a couple of weeks that says ‘a random and naughty dog came in off the street and ate my Shalom cardigan, how could this happen’, or, ‘I have somehow made three armholes in my Shalom cardigan and I do not understand why’ then I hope someone will stage an intervention and just make me put that @£$%^$% yarn up for sale on ebay. Because this is the third strike, and after this, that yarn is out. It is so out. It could not be more out. It is on its final warning. I think I am justified.