Misunderestimation

I am approximately 1/3 done with x-mas surprise #5. Even though I went and bought another skein of alpaca last Thursday before SnB, this is how much I have left:


Yeah, just the label.

So it looks like I'll be needing at least two more skeins to finish. I obviously have no skill whatsoever in eyeballing how many stitches I can really get out of a certain amount of yarn. Lucky for me, Eklectika now works part-time at our LYS, so she's going to see if there is any she can set aside for me to pick up tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I will be knitting like a fiend on the Merino Lace Cardigan to try and distract myself from the stress. Seriously, my stomach is doing some major acrobatics here. Taz has his consulate appointment tomorrow, and only today was told that they may not have received his paperwork enough in advance of the appointment. If it doesn't go well tomorrow, he'll have to get a new appointment for some other day, and I probably won't see him again until I get to India myself. Gah!

One thing I'm happy to say, though, is that I have finally mastered spit splicing, at least when it comes to single-ply merino. An early entry in this blog described my frustration in trying to splice yarn when I would come across this situation in my knitting:


Oh no! I don't want to have to weave in that ugly end!

I already knew that you're supposed to fray the ends of each piece slightly:


Fraying is easier if you untwist the yarn (against its own natural twist).

And then you're supposed to lay them over each other and wet the yarn with your own sweet spittle:


Mmmmm, gooey!

And then you rub it between your fingers, and it somehow magically becomes one piece of yarn. But what I didn't realize before is that for one thing, "wet the yarn" means really get it totally goopy and slimy drench it (a little puddle in your hand is good), and for another thing, you're really supposed to rub it between your palms, hard, until you build up a lot of heat from the friction. When you do it this way, it really is like magic:


Yay for no ends to weave in, and for efficient yarn usage!

Can you honestly tell what section of this yarn is the spliced part? Didn't think so. And no, it's not because I just took a picture of some other part of the yarn that had never been broken. A small victory, perhaps, but you have to look for joy wherever you can find it.

Please send good vibes for Taz. And a stiff drink or two for me. Or yarn.