Time for Another Round

I'm playing that game again. You know what game I'm talking about -- it's a game all knitters play at some point in their knitting careers. That's right: I'm engaged in yet another nail-biting round of Yarn Chicken.

This time the opponent is the yarn in my Waiting for Rain. Knowing that my remaining yarn supply was looking low, I decided to omit a handful of rows at the end following the last lace section. I soon found myself with only a small bit of my main color leftover -- not enough to do another two rows. So I worked one more garter ridge in the contrast color and then started the bind off (the alternative, fancier bind off option -- also the one that takes more yarn). I'm now about halfway through it, and this is all the yarn I have left:

I have to be honest: I'm not feeling very confident about this one. I'm pretty sure I'm going to run short on yarn, and there's no way I'm buying another skein just to finish binding off. If I do run out, I'll rip back and just do a regular stretchy bind off. That would disappoint me, because I really like the look of this bind off and think a plain edge just won't be as pretty, but a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.

Fortunately this is the only game of Yarn Chicken I'm playing at the moment. My double-knit cowl is getting close to being done (fewer than 10 rounds remain), and I've got plenty of yarn. The image is really apparent now -- as is the fact that this cowl will need a serious blocking to tidy it up.

I also cast on for a pair of socks over the weekend on a bit of a whim (we went to see a movie Saturday afternoon, and I wanted something I could knit in the dark). This is the BFL from FatCatKnits I finished a couple of weeks ago. I'm just knitting a plain stockinette sock with a ribbed cuff to let the yarn do all the talking.

The first order of business tonight, however, before I square off against the remaining yarn in my shawl, is finishing up my corespun. I have just a couple of strips of fiber left to be spun, and the amount of core left on the bobbin is quickly dwindling, so it shouldn't take me too much time. I love how much this yarn is filling up the bobbin.

I'm only using 4 oz. of fiber and the yarn itself looks to be about sportweight on the whole, so the fact that this WooLee Winder bobbin is almost full tells you just how fluffy this yarn is. I'll be really interested to see just how much of it there is as well as how wild it is off the bobbin, as I suspect there's a fair amount of twist in it. Finishing this yarn should be a good way to get out any pent-up aggression!