Learned several lessons with this one...

[sharpchick_2011]

I posted my questions about how the yarn was twisted so tightly from the winding...

Here is a photo of the last row before I bound off.



You can see how tightly wound it was in those first five stitches, as opposed to the width of the yarn as it was on the hank before winding. That continued over and over throughout the knitting of the scarf.

When I asked at the yarn store how many balls I'd need for the finished scarf, she said one.

So I bought one.

And got a 37.5 inch scarf.



Don't know any toddlers who will be dancing over this color combo, so I think I now have a very expensive table runner. Or a huge hot pad.

But I learned some lessons here...

130 yards of Camp Stove is enough to make half a scarf.

Any future purchases of this yarn will be wound by hand.

Comments

[twistedchick]

A suggestion I learned from my mother, the constant knitter: when you buy yarn, rewind it into balls before using it. To do that, wind it around your fingers to start, and when there's enough to hold, wind *over at least three fingers* so that the yarn doesn't get stretched out and stay stretched -- you will want it to be able to stretch in the finished product, not the ball. Work from the outside of the ball (not the inside), and if it tries to get away from you, put it in a bowl on the floor (or similar thing).

It might help.

[sharpchick_2011]

Thanks for that suggestion.

[adonnchaid]

This yarn actually looks like it's supposed to be that way, it's a novelty yarn, thick/thin in the original spinning. I found these yarns on the Berroco website that look a lot like the yarn in your picture:

http://www.berroco.com/shade_cards/campus_sh.html

[ginny_t]

The thing about winding by hand is that it is actually a circular twisting motion. When a skein is wound into a cake using a swift and a ball winder, the yarn isn't actually twisted any further.

Did you ever use a yo-yo? If you want the twist on your yo-yo to stay loose for sleeping, you can't hold the yo-yo in one hand and wrap the string around it with the other. That messes with the twist. This is the same principle.

I honestly have no idea what happened in this case. I do know that the way I knit can affect the twist of the yarn. Knitting continental supposedly increases twist, and thrown knitting supposedly decreases it. It's the opposite for me.

This particular yarn looks like it might be inconsistently twisted for a certain look. That's also a possibility.

As for the amount of yarn needed for a scarf, did the people at your LYS tell you what needles to use and how many stitches? Those affect the amount of yarn you need.

Also, I always knit from the middle of the ball (unless it has no animal fibre [except silk] at all, in which case it doesn't have enough texture to hold its shape and turns into a mess). As long as it's not wound too tightly, it'll go fine.

[sharpchick_2011]

Yes, they told me the needle size to use, and how many stitches to cast on.

I was surprised when I was told only one ball of yarn would be needed for the scarf, because the other scarf I'm working on has taken two. (I'm using the fingertip to fingertip measurement for scarf length, regardless of whether the intended wearer is a child or an adult.)

The yarn in the hank was not twisted - I had time to wait while other customers were in front of me and examine the hank. The twisting had to have occurred when the yarn shop wound the yarn into a ball for me. Knitting with it was a frequent challenge, because when I came to the tightly twisted parts, the yarn coming from the ball started twisting also as I pulled it out.

The only option I have for winding my own right now is the back of a kitchen chair and my own two hands.

[indeliblesasha]

I almost never have my yarn wound, I always do it myself by hand. It gives a lot more control on how the tension is and I make pretty kickass center-pull balls :D

I sometimes use a chair, but usually I just sit on the edge of the couch and spread my knees out and put the hank around them, (on in my recliner with my feet up if I'm feeling slouchy) it lets me control the tension on the hank while the yarn is unwinding too, and then I can move the ball around however I want while I wind it by hand.

As far as the scarf only taking one ball: Did they know you intended to knit it in garter stitch? I could see it very easily being a one-skein-scarf in stockinette, though still not an especially long one.

[indeliblesasha]

Also, I want to echo the others who are suggesting you pull it out. I have discovered that it is completely worthwhile to frog disappointing projects, and make them into something I love. Also it will give you the chance to get the yarn back to a twist that you're happy with.

[momijizukamori]

re: continental versus English - it depends on how the yarn was twisted when it was manufactured. Someone did an interesting experiment with this on Ravelry, which I will have to go find the post for - but iirc, European yarn brands mostly had twist in the direction that worked with continental, and NA yarn brands had it that worked with English.

[momijizukamori]

Here's the post - I thought it had included brand info commentary, but apparrently I was mis-remembering. The poster does mention they got the idea from trying to knit with a spun-single they'd bought in Poland and having problems with untwisting, though.

[ginny_t]

A single is a different thing, even in North America. It's twisted the opposite way of a plied yarn because you twist in the opposite direction of spinning when you ply yarns together.

I knit quite a few things out of singles in a row this past autumn, and I noticed the difference.

[smeddley]

To be honest, if it's not something you're going to use as-is, you may as well pull it out and re-use the yarn. Since you probably can't get the exact same yarn again (dye lot and all) maybe find a second hank of complimentary yarn and do a striped scarf?

As for the twist, the link adonnchaid posted does seem to indicate that's just the way the yarn is, purposely uneven. And you can wind by hand, but it is more likely (if you put it into a ball) that that motion to loosen or tighten it even more.

If you do put it in a ball, and pull from the outside, I would HIGHLY recommend something like a yarn bowl to keep it from running across the room. You can buy very expensive ceramic ones, or make really cheap ones from old 2-liter soda bottles or plastic twist-top fruit and nut containers.

[sharpchick_2011]

I never heard of a yarn bowl...how interesting.

[untonuggan]

You could turn it into a Scarf Rescue Hat. Unfortunately the pattern is in a book I don't have (yet) because I got it from the library and they demanded it back. However, your local library might have it. I'll bastardize the instructions if I try to tell you here, but someone else might know...

Sorry this happened. :(

[sharpchick_2011]

Thanks for that link.

[neotoma]

This is a thick-and-thin yarn, so you're going to get a lot of variation in how it looks as you knit it. It's deliberate and there are stitch patterns you can use to take advantage of it, like some of the star and spike patterns.

Did the yarn shop tell you what gauge (tension) you should get with this yarn as well as what size needles to use and how many stitches to cast on? If they were expecting you to get 5 stitches/inch and you got 3 st/in, that obviously would effect what footage you got out of it.

I can usually get a 5ft or longer scarf out of 200 yds of worsted weight yarn, but my scarves are about 5 inches wide at a gauge of 5 st/in.

If you unravel it, you can probably get a hat out of it, or a pair of fingerless mittens.

[rooibos]

Maybe you just had a wonky skein of yarn..?

[woldy]

Personally, I doubt it has anything to do with the winding. Let me explain.

I used to spin, both with a wheel and with a drop-spindle. When one is spinning, the rotations cluster in the thinnest sections of yarn, so if the yarn one is spinning alternates from chunky to skinny then the chunky sections are barely spun and the skinny sections end up over-twisted (one reason why people put a lot of effort into learning to spin a fairly constant width of yarn). When plying (that means combining 2 or more strands of spun yarn) the same thing happens, so skinny sections end up more twisted.

Your yarn is plied (you can tell by the two separate and distinctly coloured strands) and it looks exactly the way I would expect it to look if I had handspun the white yarn to alternate skinny-chunky and then plied it with the darker yarn. If you don't like the extra-twisted sections then the solution is not to buy (or spin) yarn that alternates from chunky to skinny, and if you don't like the plied extra-twisted sections then the solution is not to buy plied yarn that alternates from chunky to skinny.

I'm not an expert spinner and a more experienced spinner might disagree, but my assessment is that the phenomena you describe is a natural consequence of the variations in width of the white yarn.

Re. the yarn quantity & scarf length, another alternative is to make it half the width, which will give you twice as much length. I find that very wide chunky scarves are so heavy that I never wear them, so I knit them 5-6 inches wide. So one option - and I don't know how traumatic you would find this - is to rip out the entire scarf and reknit it with 1/2 to 2/3 as many stitches in your cast-on.

[sharpchick_2011]

I thought about doing that - for now, I'm going to let it sit out of sight...

[oakmouse]

I'm a spinner too (spindle) and I think you're right.

[rivenwanderer]

You might also be able to make it into a cowl by seaming the ends together, or add buttons somewhere.

[sharpchick_2011]

That's an interesting thought.

[oakmouse]

That yarn really looks to me as though it was deliberately spun to be of uneven gauge (thickness). If so, the yarn shop really needs to inform a newbie knitter that this is the case, because a yarn like that performs differently than a yarn of even gauge.

I agree with the ones who say rip it out and reuse the yarn for a different pattern. No need to keep a thing that isn't what you wanted.

[evilawyer]

I agree with oakmouse's call that this yarn looks like it's been deliberately spun for uneven gauge. Which can look very nice on the right project (which could be a scarf if you were going for the look), but it's something of a shock to see how it knits up if you aren't already expecting bobbles and areas of twist. Unfortunate the yarn store personnel didn't explain that the yarn wasn't yield a uniform appearance in the finished scarf, because this kind of yarn can be very fun to work with (even more fun to spin) if it's what you want to work with.

[evilawyer]

I never believe it when a person or a pattern tells me that a single ball of yarn is enough to make anything truly adult-sized.