Bad Yarn Karma (and a good movie)

We spent a quiet Easter at home, in our PJs, doing a whole lot of nothing. Well, not really nothing...I did work a bit more on this:It's the rather ugly hat I'm required to knit for Level 1 of the Master Hand Knitter certification. All of my swatches are done...have been for a while. But this hat has been the bane of my existence. I've ripped it out three times. My opinion is that I'm having trouble knitting it because I don't care for the pattern. I mean, honestly, it's not like it's difficult!

I have this weird superstition/belief that if I have a lot of trouble with a pattern (regardless of difficulty) and have to rip it out several times, the fibers absorb the negative energy and develop Bad Yarn Karma (BYK). It's happened to me several times. Last year it was a pair of Jaywalkers I was knitting with a Koigu KPPPM in a charcoal/brown colorway. They just weren't coming together, even though it's not a hard pattern to knit. After several re-starts, I couldn't shake the feeling that they simply weren't meant to be.

When BYK happens, it usually results in me putting the yarn back into my stash and ditching the pattern. Sometimes I can't even use the yarn again for another project. Like the light blue Rowan I used in last year's unshapely tunic (the Shapely Tank, which stretched into dress-like proportions)--I unravelled the yarn, washed it, and reskeined it, but I just can't bring myself to use it again. It doesn't FEEL right.

Very weird...Or is it? Am I alone, or has anyone else experienced BYK?

I do, however, have a Bad Yarn Karma solution: Go directly to your LYS and buy some new yarn for the project. I swear it works. Like this dumb hat, for example. I knit and ripped, knit and ripped, using the brown Ella Rae. I had other colors for the necessary stripes, but couldn't get past that sinking feeling that this project was doomed and I'd never get past Level 1. So I stopped in my LYS on Saturday and picked up a new skein of Ella Rae in that light pink color. Now the hat's on track and I'm going to be able to submit my work after all. That shot of freshness was all I needed.

Speaking of a shot of freshness, I'm still enjoying the lovely shades of lavender, purple, and indigo in this Koigu KPPPM:
(Sorry for the fuzzy photo.)

That's sock #1, on my big foot. The recipient (not to be named until after the gift is delivered) has much smaller feet than I, but I wanted to show off the finished product. Well, almost finished--the picot cuff still needs to be turned down and sewn.

Here's sock #2, on Saturday morning:
Don't you love my little table piled with knitting crap? My lovely husband is so easy going--he never complains about it at all. Perhaps he deserves a pair of socks of his own...Oh, but those size 12 feet! That's a whole lot of knitting ;-)

By the way: We saw "Hoax" this weekend (Richard Gere's new movie). It was quite good. Funny, fast-paced, intelligent, and keeps you on the edge of your seat waiting for his house of complex lies to come crashing down. Chris and I both enjoyed it thoroughly, and highly recommend it. If you see (or saw) it, let me know what you think.

Bad Yarn Karma (and a good movie)