Not Yarn Chicken This Time!

Around Chez YarnDiet, we all know that the chief yarn wrangler (that would be me!) seems to be awfully fond of a good game of yarn chicken.  But did you know that the chief yarn wrangler also enjoys a good game of bead chicken?

When I cast on the fingering weight version of my Annapurna, in a discontinued yarn, I knew that I had plenty of yarn to knit her.  I actually had a blankets quantity of this yarn, but got discouraged knitting the blanket and re-purposed the yarn.  A few hanks became my Winter Wheat, which left me with several hanks to become Annapurna 3. 

I also had a plan for the beads.  The plan was to use gold lined clear beads on the edges and some brilliant green beads in the body of the shawl.  However, when I tried using the brilliant green beads I realized that they were much too small to a) show up and b) go over the yarn without splitting it.  I recalled buying two tubes of the gold lined beads so I went merrily on my way knitting and beading without giving it a second thought.

No second thoughts, that is, until the tube started looking a little bit empty-ish.  Having gone through the exercise of sorting my stash (both the yarn version and the bead version) I knew right where to look for the second tube.  At least I thought I did, because when I went to the drawer where the beads are stored I found all kinds of shiny things, but not a single tube of gold lined clear beads.

Hmmmmm

This might be the problem with having children who craft!

So I poured out the beads that were left in that tube and counted them.  Then very carefully put them back in the tube while I pulled out the chart and counted how many more beads I would need.

Can I get a drum roll please......

As of that counting I would have three beads left over.

But wait!

I said I was playing bead chicken here, there has to be more to that story, right?

You guessed it!  There is more!

I would have had three beads left over so long as ....... I didn't drop any*......and....none were completely gold filled instead of gold lined.

I already hit one "dud" in the bunch.  A gold filled bead rather than a gold lined bead.

I need 12 more usable beads out of the 14 that are left in the tube as of today.

I haven't bought more, because you know what they say.....

I am taking a calculated risk.  But, I am not very good at math!

What would you do? Buy more now or wait until you get to that final beading row and have to stop part way through? Let me know in the comments!

~M

*A friend suggested that along with having no-one breathe while I knit that final row that I lay a large sheet in the middle of the living room and sit on it to knit.  That way, if I do drop one it will be easy to find.