Debacle

I am trying to use up the yarn with beads strung on it that I used for the Pence Jug. Weeks ago I marked some patterns in Ravelry as likely candidates, and even noted the one I liked best. Yesterday I went to cast it on and saw that I did not have enough yardage. Why did I mark it? How did it even show up in a search I would have filtered for the yardage I had? I glumly looked at some other patterns (a nice baby shirt, but who makes silk baby clothes???) and wound up casting on for some mitts. I sat figuring out how I would bead the cuffs, and wondering when I would wear silk mitts in my life (to the opera - or a masked ball - definitely). Three rows in I looked at the ball of yarn, and even my non-numeric brain balked at the idea that this was a mere 176 yards.

Back I went to Ravelry, where I ONCE AGAIN taught my brain the difference between pattern pages and project pages -- I had marked a project page, and the yardage was what that knitter had left in stash, not me! Hurray! I ripped out the embryonic mitt, and carefully began to cast on the shawl from the non-beaded end of the ball of yarn, since the beading would occur at the final edging.

Many hours later, admired my lengthy Chinese Waitress Cast On, and turned to the pattern for the next step. "Begin the beaded lace chart." The cast-on edge was the bottom of the shawl, not the top. So there I was, late at night, faced with a decision. Rip out literally hours of cast on, or spend even longer running all the beads to the other end of the ball of yarn?

I don't know if you know this, but I don't believe in dichotomies. There is always another option. It may not be the one you choose, but never get trapped into believing you only have a binary choice.

In this case, the answer was to slide the beads off the yarn and add them via crochet hook as I went along. And once I had them off and found a container for them, I had given myself enough time to realize I had Even Better leftover beads for this project.