Sheep Shots

Sometimes, you just want to use up a bunch of odd balls.

Sometimes, you'd like them to be, oh, mittens, or slippers, or socks, or booties. You know, things that are best made in pairs that at least look like they came from the same state (red or blue?).

So what's a knitter to do?


If you don't have an over-abundance of the same identical leftover yarn the obvious solution is to somehow divide the yarn from one little ball into two even smaller balls and work from there.

I have to say that the writing out in words takes a lot less space than the show-and-tell way, but show-and-tell is so much more, well, graphic.

So, show-and-tell it is!



Start by unrolling the single ball into a very loose (and messy) pile of yarn.

Warning: if you have furbabies that like to play with yarn, wait until they are 1) eating, 2) asleep, or 3) on the other side of a tightly closed door before you start this process. Two of three would be even better, but why press your luck?









Find the two ends.


















Match up the whole length of yarn














so that you find the exact center of the strand. (Okay, close to the center, like within a foot or so of the exact center, will work unless you have a very small amount -- a couple or three yards, for example).


















Tie a loose, overhand knot like the one to the left there.













Start at one end and roll a little center-pull ball











When you get to the knot, stop.


Repeat from the other end.















This will give you two nearly identically bits of yarn rolled into two balls.

You can cut them apart if you want. I don't simply because, if I don't use the whole half (oxymoron alert!!) , I am not stuck with two stupidly small bits, but rather have one slightly longer bit with a knot in the middle (which is easily removed because I tied it loosely (see that step up there where the knot was tied.


Oh, there's another one!


I have several of these lying around as I am gearing up for another Mitten Challenge.








Okay, today you got knitting content when you really wanted to know how the sale went.

I went into this sale intending to unload a lot of crap, notto make a load of cash. This is a good thing. Because I did not make a lot of cash. It rained most of the night, much of the morning, and on into the afternoon.

I recovered my "table rent" (or permit fee) and got a little extra. But the dehumidifier is gone! The mattress and box spring, ditto. A bunch of interesting tschatchkes are gone, too.

At 2 o'clock, I rolled the garbage can in and started pitching things-of-Limited-Value (old golf balls, really old golf balls), Glasses with someone else's initials etched on them.

I moved the typewriter (really!), the antique desk chair (complete with auto-pinch seat), and 3 plastic sleds to the curb. (Twenty minutes later, the chair was gone. I have high hopes for the rest!)

Everything else (except for 2 pieces of furniture), I bagged or boxed and stuffed in the trunk of my car. I'll let my coworkers root through and anything they don't want, I'll put in the dumpster.

Thus ends another yard sale.