The Yarn You Don't Love

I love mystery yarn boxes, but sometimes they come with skeins I don't like at first sight. Such was the case with this cake of Big Momma Blanket yarn, which is 100% polyester #6 superbulky weight and contains 4 oz. /100 grams and 43 yards /40 meters. There's no colorway name so we can call it egg yolk yellow.

Why don't I like it? I have zero love for this shade of yellow (okay, truth be told, I dislike all shades of bright yellow.) I am not a huge fan of superbulky. What am I going to do with just 43 yards of blanket yarn?

For all of those reasons, I'm going to use it as the bottom of a scrap yarn basket. Also, if I don't use up some scrap yarn this month my scrap basket is going to explode.

I'm mixing in some yellow acrylic yarn to make up the bulk I need for this pattern, which customarily uses three strands. Yellow with yellow for the win!

Big Mamma is surprisingly nice to work with -- thick but soft, quite pliable for a superbulky -- and despite the color I did enjoy working it up into the basket bottom. The cake ran out before I got to the last row of the bottom, but it formed a decently sturdy basket base.

I started building the sides atop the base using balls of scrap yarn.

This is going to be my new, ready-to-be-used scrap yarn ball basket.

Note that you cannot see the yellow bottom unless you lift up the basket. It's nice a sturdy and probably will never stretch out. Disliked yarn used out of sight = problem solved.

My old scrap basket will hold specialty scrap yarn, which I don't use very often, and also serve as a catch holder for bits I need to untangle and/or wind.

My philosophy about yarn I don't love is to definitely use it. I happen to have many ugly memory associations with the color yellow, including a loved one becoming ill with jaundice. So what? I routinely challenge myself to use colors I don't like (pink is another one) so I can get over that sort of negativity. I doubt I will ever voluntarily choose yellow yarn unless a pattern calls for it, but when it does cross my path I can absolutely work with it.

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