Y is for Yarn

Y isn't just for yarn, as in arm knitting with yarn. It's for YEAH, BABY, I DID IT!

The pin:

Found on youtube.com

This is a link to a video on arm knitting an infinity scarf. True story. You use your arms as knitting needles. OF COURSE, I'm going to try this!

I found the yarn she recommended for the project at Michael's. It was around $6 for a skein, and it required two skeins, but I had a 50% off one item coupon, so that helped. 

Here is the most important thing to know about arm knitting. Go to the bathroom before you start. 

The hardest thing about this project was trying to watch a YouTube video while simultaneously knotting yarn onto my arms. I had to stop and start it A LOT until I got the hang of casting on. Keeping the yarn tight enough (without threat of cutting off circulation) was also an issue. But after the fourth try (YES, FOURTH), I finally got the hang of it.

Looky! I'm knitting!

Contrary to how it looks, I am not wearing an apron;
I draped a white pillowcase over my lap so the charcoal yarn
would show against my dark jeans. Not the effect I was hoping for.

Ruby was mysteriously absent during the arm knitting. I was considering myself both grateful and wary, as she has been in the thick of helping me on every project for my A to Z Challenge, and her missing is akin to a toddler being strangely quiet somewhere in the house. Never fear, Fletcher couldn't resist the yarn and joined me.

He may look relaxed, but he's got a paw-full of yarn.

Once I got going, it took me a little over 30 minutes to get the scarf to the length I wanted it.

When I got it to the length I wanted, the last knitting step is casting off. I wasn't thrilled with how that went, but I didn't know how to fix it without unraveling the whole thing, and after four false starts, that just wasn't an option. 

Maggie, the knitter in the YouTube video, was rather vague about sewing the ends together to make it an infinity scarf. I did it the best I could and it's fine, as long as you don't look too closely. Besides, any seam that might feasibly show would be hidden by my hair.

Here it is:

Oh, and where was Ruby during all this? She had quietly gotten up on a table, knocked down a spool of satin ribbon that I was using for the washer necklaces, and had wound the ribbon all underneath the table and the laundry basket that was on the floor. See? Toddler.

A trail of ribbon.

The (now empty) spool or ribbon at the end
(or beginning, depending on your frame of mind)
of the ribbon maze under the table.

And it's another Pinterest win, although I never would have believed it would happen on attempts one through three of the project.

Yo.