Yarn Chicken Game

[Brigitta Martini]

Ifyou are having trouble finding the exact yarn which is called for in the pattern, you may be able to substitute with a different yarn of a similar weight and fibre content. This however really depends on the pattern. It might be easier to add a different colour and yarn to a multi-colour project like a granny square than it is to an item that only uses a single colour.

This one is more of an advanced trick and might work for some projects better than for others. I used it very successfully on a granny square blanket the other day, but it might not work on your project. A tighter tension will use less yarn, but your fabric might be a little bit more stable in this particular place. I recommend going down no further than half a hook size to make the tension difference not to big. But it works perfectly for those projects where you only need a tiny little bit more to make your yarn work out for you.

From experience, I usually add about 10% as a safety buffer when increases are involved. However, if you even want to take the guesswork out of this you can do this by weighing another repeat. When you take the difference between the two repeat weights you will see how much yarn you require for each increase.

Maybe the skeins of yarn don't quite have the same yardage as used in the design. Or maybe you used a little bit for another project but have most of the skein left. Or you decided to change up the gauge or sizing or something else.

You decide to take a chance and knit up the design in that yarn. You cross your fingers and cast on. The game begins. Will you be able to finish it? Or will you run out of yarn and have to change the design to make it work?

We all want to make the very most of the special yarn we are using and make, particularly shawls, as big as we can with the yarn we have. A lot of our shawl patterns are written such that you can keep going until you run out of yarn. Even just knowing if you can complete a pattern as written can be tricky as the yarn seems to be running out faster than the instructions. Maybe you will be using a different yarn to the suggested one and it might have a different yardage or you haven't checked your tension so don't know if your are using yarn at the same rate.

Take the second weight away from the first to find the difference. If the difference is less than weight remaining you are good to go again if the row/repeat is the same length ie it is not increasing.

If you are working on an rows that increase you need to make sure that you have more than the difference remaining to be able to finish it. If you want to take even the guess work out of this you can take an extra data point by weighing another repeat (starting the process earlier) and taking the difference between the two row/repeat weights. You will then need to add this on to the difference. If we call the weight after the second repeat C then we can express it like this:

This works best when you have not too much yarn left to unravel. Find the half way point in your remaining yarn (or further towards the working end if rows are increasing). Tie a small removable knot at about that point. If you finish your row/repeat before you get to the knot then you know you can have another row/repeat.

All of our patterns are sized from XS to 5X. We also include guidance within our patterns for altering to fit different body shapes. And if that's not enough, check out our free guide to making garments that fit.

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The yarn seems to be diminishing exponentially to the rate of the growth of the project. This means either there is some warp in the time space fabric of physics, or, less likely, you were stingy at the yarn store. This always happens once you are well past the halfway point. You have already committed an embarrassing amount of time to this project.

You, in this scenario, choose the last, for experience has taught you that faith has a place in the universe. Plus, your love for this project goes beyond the boundaries of physics, and miracles do happen.

The Chickie Run Scene in Rebel Without A Cause, 1955

When I first heard the term, "Yarn Chicken" I immediately understood the reference. I am a child of popular culture. The classic movie, "Rebel Without a Cause" is my yardstick by which I measure my life. In the movie, the kids end up playing "Chickie Run" which is a game between two rivals in the movie. They get a couple of beat up old cars and drive them to a clearing on the top of a hill that ends in a cliff above the ocean. They start to race. The first person to bail out of the car before the car flies off the cliff's edge is dubbed "Chicken." Poor "Buzz" got his sleeve caught in the door handle. This was a fatal mistake. "Jim" is the chicken, but at least he's still alive! Oy! Those kids! Chicken is a game designed to test the nerve of the players involved. There are no deaths in Yarn Chicken. Yarn chicken is a game in which a crocheter or knitter is not exactly sure whether or not there is enough yarn to finish a project and continues with the project anyway, yardage be damned! Whoa! If that's not rebellious behavior, I don't know what is!After my yarn stash purge and organization last week, I saw that I owned two beautiful, sock-weight yarns, one in gray tones and one in a kettle-died black. Both were ABOUT the same yardage. Perfect for one shawl! Instead of striping the yarn, I decided on the color-block method that is so popular right now. I found a nice pineapple crochet chart pattern on some Russian crochet website. Crochet Chart and Gray Section of Shawl

In order for the pineapples to be facing in the correct way for each end of the stole, you must join the sections at the center of the piece. I started to crochet with the gray yarn and finished 10 pineapple pattern repeats. I even had a bit of yarn leftover, just in case.

When I joined the black yarn in the center, I merrily crocheted along. I had ALMOST 10 repeats of the pattern and saw that I was running out of black yarn. Oh no! Yarn Chicken! I started to crochet tighter. My heart was beating faster. I skipped a few chains, thinking that might conserve yarn! Phew! I made it with about 10 inches of yarn to spare. I ripped back that last row and added back the chains I'd skipped.OMG! I have so much excitement in my life!Labels: Art, Los Angeles, Memories, yarny stuff

I recently played a game of yarn chicken and lost. I was hoping I would have enough yarn to bind off on a right side row, while maximizing use of yarn. What I should have done is roughly estimate by weight what each row was taking me and compare against what I had left. To top it all off, the bind off calls for a picot edge, which uses more yarn than your traditional bind off would use.

I went with door number two. Pathetically begging the yarn community to see if anyone had any scraps of the same colourway I used (out of stock and discontinued or I would have just bought another hank). I got super duper lucky and a fantastic Raveler is sending me about 5 yards of their leftovers.

I had come across a ball of yarn that I had lost the label to, but I loved the colors and it felt like it had quite a bit of cotton in it. I was pretty sure I had purchased the yarn at the Longmont Yarn Shoppe, so I brought it in with me when I went there this Wednesday for Casual Crochet.

I started my cowl while at the Casual Crochet meeting. By the time I was back home where I could weigh it, I had worked 9 rounds off the foundation. According to my scale I had used 50g of my yarn. I decided I had better weigh my remaining yarn too, just to be on the safe side. I had 45g left to work with still.

When I got to the end of Round 15 I thought about stopping. I liked the width of the cowl and with the edging it would be a nice size for spring/summer wear. I took some photos comparing it to the first sample I had crocheted.

The looser finishing edge actually works out. I like the slight flaring that the cowl has. When it is worn with the foundation round at the top, the slightly larger edging round gives it a graceful fit across the shoulders. If I was working this cowl for a design sample I might be more concerned and would pull it out to rework the loose rows. Instead, this was just for my own entertainment, and will probably be added to my wardrobe.

In my opinion the most important part of playing yarn chicken is a willingness to re-imagine the final project. By eliminating a few rounds I made a beautiful cowl with the yarn I had picked, even though yardage and weight were quite different from the yarn I originally used in my design.

Once I ran out of yarn, I looked in my stash to see if there was something complimentary that could be used to complete the hat. I found a little of a darker brown yarn than I used and some multicolored yarn that were the closest contenders. I opted for the multi colored yarn to add a subtle shift for the brim.

Once I moved back to Hawaii, I decided to repurpose the sweater into a blanket for my dad. Not that dad needed such a warm blanket in Hawaii but there a couple of weeks a year when a cozy warm blanket is appreciated.

I decided on a basketweave pattern with a chunky stockinette border. It was easy enough that if I put it down for a while I could pick right up. I made the blanket wide enough to cover a person and I would knit the blanket till I ran out of yarn.

Speaking of spirits, we are of course in what has come to be known as Spooky Season. Or at least those of you in the United States are. Halloween is not much of a thing in France, where it is still mostly regarded as an American import.

Scenario: We are enjoying a pleasant walk in the woods, when out of nowhere the storm clouds gather and a tempest blows in. We fear being soaked to the skin! But what is that, in the clearing just beyond the trees? A yarn shop! What luck.

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