When Is Too Much Of A Good Thing?

In the fall of 2006, the man & I had a lovely long weekend in New York. It was an add-on - he had a conference in Philly, so it was basically free. Yay free! I made a point of stopping by a couple yarn stores in Philadelphia & NY. In Philly, I learned the importance of insisting on going yarn stores by myself, or at least not going with non-knitting acquaintances. My non-knitting friends & family love & understand me; and they'll usually wander off to find a coffee, or something. My enjoyment of Philly's yarn store was somewhat trammelled; although it was a good lesson. Last fall, In San Francisco, I knew enough to insist (almost to the point of rudeness) that I really was fine walking 12 blocks over to the yarn store, and that I really would prefer to go by myself, and I wasn't afraid, & I didn't want company, and really, Let Me Go By Myself. And it was a good thing.

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But I digress. I think the yarn store in NY was the first time that the man had ever come to a YS with me, and while I was so fixated on finding the address & reading street signs that I didn't notice much else, apparently he was feeling a little uncomfortable with the yarns store's area. When we did find it, it was on a second floor, and had a buzzer you rang so that they would let you in. Maybe that's why he was so content to sit while I pawed through skein after skein. On the way out, I was so stoked from my finds that I again didn't notice anything about the area, other than maybe a lot of pawnshops with gold in their windows.

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This is some of what I got there - I fell in love. It was soft, hand-dyed, has cashmere in it, and was pretty reasonable. This is before I''d begun my knitting journals, so I don't remember how cheap, the yardage, or the fiber content. Oh well. It's still soft & pretty. It's also very fine, much finer than my usual knit.

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It's also magic. This ball has gone on for ever, and when I got clever tonite, I found that I have 7g of 43g knitted. That means that 16% of that yarn is left to knit.

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I'm discouraged. I planned to knit a scarf, out of this ball of yarn, and it's the scarf that never ends, it just goes on and on and on.... And it feels like cheating if I just cast off (even though the scarf is a lovely length), and I'm the one setting the rules (so how can I be cheating?). Despite picked this sucker up periodically and plugging away at it, it's still not close (10%) to being done. (I kept putting it down so that I wouldn't start hating it.)

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And I'm starting to hate it, just a little. I think it could sure recover from the hate with a good blocking, but... do I continue knitting, risking the hate increase? Do I cast of know, and know that forever, that little 7g ball of yarn will be snickering at me? Do I put it back into the "thinking" pile of knitting?

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Who can say. I am, for sure, going to go & tub though.