Froggy says wha?

Rip it, rip it, rip it good

I have not bought yarn in years. Instead, I’ve been ripping up sweaters I don’t wear anymore and projects that have been sitting in time out for whatever reason. There is, however, a limited number of times you can rip and reuse your yarn before it starts to show its age. That’s where rugs come in.

You know what the perfect use for a rough, bulky hand-spun yarn is? A felted rug. The Romney fleece I split with Kathy C (Knitigator) decades ago has never found its proper place—it’s too heavy and coarse for a sweater. I was using it as the background for Kaffe Fassett’s Big Flower pattern, which would have been stunning except I could not manipulate the flower pattern to fit a worsted weight gauge. The details really require a finer gauge. So that project sat in time out for years until I thought about rugs.

I first thought about rugs because of an Instagram post about braided-in rugs. It looked like the perfect TV watching activity for someone with an enormous stash of fabric. I know you’re thinking “no, no, you have an enormous stash of yarn, oh, no, she’s much too young for dementia.” But thanks to one of my sisters, I also have an enormous stash of quilting fabric. She left a giant bin full of fat quarters at my house that apparently she doesn’t want back, so I should change that sentence to “she abandoned a giant bin….” I thought I would make her a braided-in rug. She’s very consistent in her color choices and all the fabric is in complementary shades that she loves.

It turns out that the specific gesture that creates a braided-in rug (as opposed to a braided rug)—the pulling of the leftmost fabric strip through the previous braid loop next to it—is torture for your hands. I got the rug about eight inches in diameter before my thumb joints ballooned and I had to stop. But I had all these fabric strips and a great concept. So I cast on 48 stitches on Size 15 needles and started knitting.

Around the same time I ran across the Kiko Mariko pattern at Modern Daily Knitting. I loved the grellow version and just happened to have all that silver Romney, plus 500 yards of pale yellow Cascade Eco+ yarn also sitting in time out (such a misguided attempt at a Folly Cove, I can’t even tell you. I just wanted to make a Folly Cove so I made it in whatever yarn I had on hand. Bad idea.) Also sitting in time out was some homespun worsted weight natural white Cormo. I made a poncho with it but the result was kinda stiff and awkward.

This will look great in my grey and yellow kitchen.

Perhaps now you’re getting the impression that I’m like one of those people who leaves recipe reviews like “This pancake recipe is awful! It was runny and smelly. I made it exactly as written, except I didn’t have milk, so I used soda and I didn’t have eggs, so I used canned tuna.”

But while I almost never make a pattern exactly as written, I know it’s my fault if my gauge or color choices don’t work. I just think it’s fun to experiment. Worst case scenario you rip it up. No harm, no foul (unless you’re working with mohair, do not experiment with mohair). Eventually you’ll stumble across the right project for the yarn you have, and the right yarn for the project you have in mind.