Losing at Yarn Chicken

I am so, so close to the end of my Persian Tiles blanket – but then I played yarn chicken (and I lost).

Yarn chicken is one of those phrases which makes no sense when you first here it. Then it clicks, and it becomes quite a useful term! It’s when you are running short of yarn… but keep knitting or crocheting.

It can be kind of a game – you work faster and faster, as if this will make the yarn go further (tip: this doesn’t work).

Just check out some of pics people have shared on instagram – they’re like tiny Shakespearean tragedies, with people being this close to finishing a row before running out of yarn, and others triumphing by almost but not quite losing the game.

In this case, I thought I had enough yarn. I should have had enough yarn. I rechecked the pattern against the sales receipt, and I definitely bought enough yarn. But the results don’t lie: I ran out of yarn.

I think the problem was guage. I haven’t measured my gauge for this project (don’t @ me). A blanket is not a sweater, after all. In a very real way it doesn’t matter what the gauge is so long as you’re happy with the drape of the fabric (as I am).

But since my gauge was (probably) off, each stitch must have swallowed up another millimetre of yarn. And that means that I ran out of yarn. When I was so, so close to finishing.

This is why patterns always advise buy an extra skein. And why dyelots are A Thing, and why the secondhand yarn market on Ravelry is so active. This is why my stash is full of half balls of yarn (although sometimes that’s good for stripes).

What to do?

I could have ripped back – and omitted the round, or replaced it with another colour. But I was so close!

Instead, I did the only sensible thing.

Reader, I bought more yarn.

And now I am so, so close to the end of my Persian Tiles Blanket.