Scrap Blanket

Most of you who know me, know that I like to knit. I love it - blankets, potholders, scarves, afghans (different than blankets, just so you know), dishcloths, doileys, whatever. I have amassed quite the yarn collection too. You see, whenever you make something, unless it's a really thin scarf, it takes more than one skein [thing] of yarn. And you have to make sure you buy enough for each project the first time around. Yarn is dyed in lots. So if you are making a blanket out of terra cotta brown, all 20 of the terra cotta brown skeins at Hobby Lobby or Michaels or whatever, are not exactly alike. They were dyed 15 or so at a time. Each skein has a dye lot number written on the label. If you need about 8 or 9 skeins to get the job done, you better buy 9 NOW...because you have to make sure you get 9 with the same lot number, so your project has consistency...it would be awful to come back and end up with the last foot of your blanket lookin' a little off...

If you buy yarn like this for years, you end up with a little bit left of all kinds of colors...then of course there's the yarn you can't pass up...you know, the yarn that's usually 4 dollars a skein but's on sale for 99 cents...it would be just perfect for this scarf pattern...that you never get to. So every couple of years or so, I make something out of the scrap yarn. But since law school started for me three years ago this August, I've slown down a little on the knitting, and haven't had the chance to get to a scrap ANYTHING.

Well, today I started on a scrap Afghan. Knitting with two skeins at a time, I'm making a blanket with black as the constant color, and the other will be all the scraps of all the colors I have left. When I finish, the blanket will be black with many colors. There will be some of the orange chennille left over from the UT scarf I made my best friend for his birthday two years ago; frilly pink and purple mixed yarn left from the scarf I made my cousin Erika when she went skiing; red, white & blue yarn from the Obama scarf I made this year, and a different tinted red white & blue mixed yarn from the Bush scarf I made in college. There's green from the blanket I made my mother; UN blue from the blanket I'm making John; purple and white from the ACU blanket I made, and red from the GATA diamond scarf I made Kat. There's various shades of purple left from the blanket I made Shirley, and a small ball of blue mixed from the blanket I made Jay for his 24th birthday. Somehow, somewhere, I bought all this yarn...across the country and across the years, hauling it with me everywhere I go. And even though it's been sitting, stored and sorted by color and kind, for a while - some for years - now I need it. Now I'll use it.

Everytime I make one of these projects - these scrap projects - I'm always amazed at how beautiful they turn out. You'd think that all these mismatched colors, all these undertones and seemingly clashing hues would look absolutely terrible together. But they don't. Somehow, the undertone color makes it all fit...makes it look like somehow I knew I'd need enough Boston-Celtics-In-The-Finals-Again-Green for seven rows of this blanket, but only enough I-Dated-Too-Many-FRATS-And-Not-Enough-Kinsman-Blue for one row. All it takes is that black undercurrent. All it takes is one underlying consistent thought to string it all together. I guess not all that is random is aimless.

Not all who wander are without purpose.