Stress knits: scrap mitts.

I am a stress knitter. Actually, I'm a chronic stress procrastinator, and knitting is one of the best ways I know to procrastinate. (Others include reading Ravelry forums, pursuing achievements in Warcraft, and the newst addition, watching old episodes of my favorite web series.)

The past few days have been particularly stressful for me, and I've indulged liberally in all my favorite procrastination methods, sometimes at the same time. The colorwork cuffs have been fun to work on, especially because each row is interesting enough to capture my attention but also short enough that I can believably tell myself that just one more row really won't hurt. However, the other day I noticed that at the bottom of the second cuff I had skipped an entire subsection of cabling. Disheartened, I frogged back to before the mistake and slowly started knitting it up again. But it wasn't the same. I needed a new distraction.

Enter... the scrap mitts. I've needed nice warm winter gloves for a while. I have so much yarn left over from knitting my mother's hat. And I've had two miniskeins of pure angora sitting around for a while. Why not whip up some nice simple ribbed gloves for myself, to soak up the anxious minutes? I envisioned elegant angora cuffs giving way to a plainer dark gray mitt, all done in a snug k4p2 rib. Such a simple, quick knit. Could this go wrong?

Well... yes.

It looks awful.

Really awful.

I think I can state definitively that this angora is not to be used for gloves. At all. It's not elegant; it's so furry that my arm actually looks like a bear's paw. And it sheds like mad. I know I had complaints about the Road to China Light shedding, but this angora is really in another league. There is black fuzz all over my laptop keyboard and behind my glasses and up my nose. I wouldn't be surprised if this yarn is a legitimate respiratory hazard.

I would be tempted to rip back and start all over again, maybe with a much smaller cuff, switching to the Road to China Light at the wrist... but I've kept such detailed notes on the process already, and I'd have to redo the row counts all over again.

Plus, as ugly as it is, the glove is insanely warm.