Just call me Lance Armstrong

Harriet continued apace until I hit my now-traditional stumbling block: I ran out of yarn. As you can see, she's currently sleeveless, and has no button band, although she's coming together nicely and I'm hard at work on the contrast collar in the meantime.

But of the--let's see--nine sweaters I've knit in the last year or so, ALL NINE OF THEM have required either another trip to the LYS, or a prowl through the "will trade or sell" stashes on Ravelry, or an emergency order from some online stockist who had the last of the dye lot. In a few instances, this has not been a surprise; for example, sometimes I'll buy a single skein just to swatch with, like the results, and then be off and running on a new design that very night which requires a return trip to the shop the next day to buy up the rest of their stock in that color.

Occasionally these shortages are due to superstition, or wishful shopping: I buy the smallest amount I think might conceivably be usable, usually to keep myself under some magic number of dollars-spent-per-visit. Most of the time, though, it's a simple matter of me chronically underestimating how much yarn I will need, and zipping through my supply much faster than I thought I would. Me and Lance Armstrong: extra-fast, but perennially short one ball.

With Harriet, I got tripped up by the all-over cable pattern, I think. That really eats up the yardage. On the other hand, it makes for a lovely, springy, dense and stretchy fabric, which in turn obviates the need for shaping in the pattern, and is therefore totally worth it. I'd have finished this dang sweater tomorrow if I hadn't run out of yarn. Making a virtue of necessity, though, I've ALMOST made up my mind to order enough extra to make a matching skirt. That ought to take, like, three more balls, right? Maybe four?