Huh. That's funny. On mine, it said failure was an option.

So, I'd had this Manos del Uruguay yarn for forever and a day. When I bought it, I really loved it. I loved it.

I remember I loved it on its own, but I also liked it mixed with this light brown mohair that I had in my stash from God-knows-where. "You know what?" I says to myself I says (because I think this is where the Seeds of Failure were planted, and everyone knows the Seeds of Failure are nothing if not horrible with grammar), "I'm gonna just go ahead and ball these two up together so it's not all cumbersome when the right project comes along!" And so I balled up the Manos and the mohair, and I put the ball in my stash. (I can't be the first to say this, but that last sentence really sounds dirty all of a sudden). I had another hank of the Manos that I didn't mix, and I thought that was nice too.

So, time passes, as it does. I'd look at that ball of Manos and mohair in my stash (Again. Sounds kinda dirty, right?!). "Nice!" I'd think. Every now and then I'd pull it out and start something. And every time -- I was surprised to find -- it just looked bad. So I'd pull it out. Ball it up. Put it back in my stash. (Whore!)

Then I thought that a nice drop-stitch scarf would work well for it because it would show off the many colors of the Manos, and it would be soft and fuzzy with that mohair. And so I cast on, and within a few rows, it became evident that it was macrame. Seriously. Macrame from the 70's, ready for an airplane plant or a fern to go right into it. Macrame.

I called my partner-in-crime.

ME: It's macrame.
P-I-C: No. It can't be. It's that beautiful Manos.
ME: I swear to God. It's macrame.
P-I-C: I don't believe you.

I took a picture of it with my phone and sent it to her.

P-I-C: It looks fine. Just keep going.

Now, my partner-in-crime's voice got quite high as she said it looked fine. Like: "It looks FINE!" I didn't believe her, but I wanted to believe her. So I forged ahead.


It did look better as it got longer, and I started liking it the further along I went. And then it became clear that (and I know you saw this coming) I wasn't going to have enough of the Manos/mohair combo for the scarf to be a decent length, and I had balled up all I had of the mohair. But, I wasn't deterred. (Probably because I was getting a second-hand high from the now-blossoming Fern of Failure sprouting up all around me.) Remember that other hank? The one that hadn't been mixed? I was confident I'd just go get some mohair, mix it with that hank, and proceed.

Why am I even going on with this story? Why am I putting myself and more importantly YOU through this? You know how it turns out. You know what hubris will do to a person. You know I never shoulda balled on the front end (Ha HAH! I love it! SO DIRTY!).

Well, just so you know what happened... There was no light brown mohair and nothing even remotely fuzzy enough at my local yarn store. I substituted a darker mohair that I figured I could double up to yield the appropriate amount of fluff. This resulted in a very dark and very not-fluffy yarn combo.


The Woman Who Never Steers Me Wrong had a great idea, I thought. "Could you just make both ends of the scarf with the dark combo? It'll look intentional." WWNSMW isn't a knitter, but, as with my P-I-C before, I wanted to believe that her idea would work. And WWNSMW really has NEVER steered me wrong. So I tried.

In the photo below, there is not a lighting issue. It's a pretty accurate photo of the scarf with one of its "dark ends". Indeed.

Ugg.

You know what? Let's not discuss this any further. It just shames us all.

I guess all's I'm sayin' is (Failure!), go with your instincts. No. Wait. Don't pre-ball. Ummm. Er. Sometimes things don't turn out the way you planned?

Muh. I got nothin'.

Fresh-cut Failure, anyone?