Ugly skeins only require inspiration

Admittedly, I have pack-rat instincts. What knitter doesn’t? I like all sorts of yarn, but I seem to be attracted to orphan skeins in weird colors and strange configurations of fibers. I always go for yarn that is so unbeguiling to the general knitting population that it languishes for weeks in sales bins. These hoodlums and misfits of the textile world lie buried in my stash. They surface every so often like restless ghouls in a haunted crypt. It always gives me a start to encounter those creepy skeins. Ye gods, why, oh why, I wonder, aghast, did I buy that?

One stormy winter day, three skeins that weren’t really yarn – it was more like yards-long strands of torn-up T-shirts – crawled to the surface of the big blue plastic bin where I store yarn. I was looking for the dusty blue merino wool with which to knit for myself a pair of soft, warm socks. I found the merino and set it aside, my eye caught by that wretched T-shirt yarn.

Each skein of the T-shirt yarn was different – one was the color of a spoiled orange, another was a pasty black color and the third was an icky tan shade that reminded me of a camel gone bad.

My first thought was to throw the skeins into the trash. I had paid less than $1 for each skein. It wouldn’t be much of a financial loss. The skeins had been in my stash more than a year. Each time I encountered them, I yelped and couldn’t think of a single way to use them. Why keep them?

But I hate to waste stuff. I also know from long experience as a dabbler in artistic endeavors that the most surprising and wonderful things can be created from the bad, the ugly and the gruesome when, and if, a moment of inspiration arrives.

I returned the skeins to my stash, thinking as I did so, I wouldn’t wipe my feet on this stuff.

And there it was, the very thing I could do with those deviant, offensive skeins – I could crochet a rug from them.

Of course, three skeins weren’t going to be enough for the project. Now I was caught in the slimy tentacles of irony – I wanted more of the very T-shirt yarn I found so repulsive. I needed it, had to have it. It was nowhere to be found no matter how madly I surfed the Web.

I returned to my stash and started digging – like a grave robber, I swear – exhuming more ugly yarn as I worked. Two skeins of “tape” yarn popped to the surface – one in you’d-never-dare-to-eat-it pea soup green and the other in yellow-teeth ivory.

Things began to come together. I could see in my head the rug I would crochet in wide stripes of all of those repulsive colors.

After a few stints of working on the rug for a week or so, I ran out of both the T-shirt and the tape yarns. I needed at least three more skeins of something. I unearthed a skein of chenille yarn that had been sulking for several years in a basket under a table. It was perfect – the color of moldy beets. That week, I saw an ad in the newspaper that got my attention. Marden’s had received a shipment of yarn and some of it was chenille. The price was right, less than $2 a skein. And the colors were perfect – that dead camel tan, and the blackish green, sort of like pond scum on a really bad day. What luck!

Having procured the additional yarn, I sat down to complete my rug, making row after row of single-crochet stitches. And you know what, it works. That rug is so bad, it’s good; so ugly it’s beautiful.

Triumphantly, I laid the rug by the front door. I felt rather smug at how clever I had been to juxtapose those colors and those fibers.

You can’t imagine how much I enjoy wiping my feet on that ugly-yarn rug.

Snippets

Visit www.knitting-and.com to find free vintage patterns for knitting, crocheting and embroidery.

The embroidery section of the site has copies of vintage embroidery transfers that can be printed. I was enchanted with the hollyhock borders and the small floral motifs.

A pattern for an embroidered pincushion embellished with shirt buttons and beads also is posted in the embroidery section of the Web site.

For those who don’t have a computer, visit your local public library and ask a staff member to help you get to www.knitting-and.com.

March is National Craft Month. If you don’t already make stuff, consult books or surf the Web to find out what’s available. Better yet, visit local craft stores and departments to discover all of the ingredients for a new and satisfying hobby.

Call Ardeana Hamlin at 990-8153, or e-mail ahamlin@bangordailynews.net.