I made a shawl a few years ago from a single skein of yarn that was over 700 yards long (no knots! It was incredible!!). I loved the colors in the hank. I loved the texture of the yarn. I loved that I found a pattern that I could customize and use every last bit of this delicious find from a LYS. Wool, silk & bamboo: they called it Great Wall. It was perfect.
Until I finished it. The way the crochet worked up, it felt like it sucked the colors right out of the yarn. There was no lovely color pooling. There was no contrast. It was just a large blah thing that I had trouble pairing with any clothes I owned or could find at any store. Such high expectations! And then… So much time in the drawer. Here is the finished product.
So today, I did a sacrilegious thing.
Today, I found the weaved-in final end and carefully extracted it. I untied the slip knot that secured this giant granny triangle. And then I frogged the entire thing. All 700 yards. The hubs helped me wind it onto my swift, where it was bound into a hank. I submerged the whole lot of it in a sink full of cool water & soak and watched as all that crocheting melted away.
This is kind of a big deal. I rarely revisit things in my life that are finished. Whether it is a shawl or a project or a time in my life where you can’t go home again, I don’t like to go back. Sometimes it is painful, sometimes it is a reminder of a past failure, sometimes it’s just unpleasant to dwell there. With projects, I’ll give them away or donate them. Most of the time, I let the past lie in the past. I used to think that the fact that it was over was enough reason never to look back. Maybe that was hasty of me. Maybe before dismissing, I should reevaluate the raw quality of what I’m looking at. Determine if it is worth revisiting. Eventually, there will be something so good, it’s worth looking back at & putting time into again.
Hopefully, sometime after this yarn has unkinked, dried and been rewound, I can make something of this beautiful pile of fiber. When you have something raw that’s this beautiful, you can’t let it exist being mediocre.
Donita Westman 