Tribbles

I may be dating myself here, as I compare my latest project to an episode of Star Trek. In the episode entitled "The Trouble with Tribbles," an enterprising trader sells a few harmless looking pets to members of the Starship Enterprise's crew. First, Lieutenant Uhura becomes enamored with the round, fuzzy, earmuff-shaped creatures. The Tribbles emit a soothing purr which the crew finds particularly charming.

The Trouble with Tribbles is that, as Dr. McCoy states, "they are born pregnant," and the growing population soon threatens to consume all of the starship's supplies and patience. To add misery to their mischief, they physically enter the ship's systems and basically wreak havoc, while poor engineer Scotty mutters Scottish Gaelic curses.

To spare you all the pseudo-scientific details, let's just skip to the end of the story. Scotty finds a way to beam all of the Tribbles onto a Klingon ship, where, as he quips, "they'll be no tribble at all." Actually, Klingons hate Tribbles, and vice versa. In fact, Tribbles emit high-pitched shrieks when coming into contact with Klingons (a nice finishing touch to the story).

Now we come to my own Tribbles, i.e., Boho Blocks. It started out innocently enough. I had acquired some lovely 3-ply hand-dyed silk from Interlacements. It was a "Dyer's Choice" blue/violet/dark grey batch that was never replicated. But I saw it and fell in love. The amazing thing about it was that each of the three plies was itself a lovely 2-ply silk thread, heavy enough to be considered fingering or light DK weight.

Thus began my troubles. I began by UNPLYING, the considerable yardage. I figured that with the yarn unplied, I might have enough to do the main body of the Boho Blocks Cardigan from Interweave Crochet, Fall 2006. I calculated how many yards of a single ply would be required to make one square. Then I hung the whole skein around my swift, unwound the required length, enough for three squares, cut it, unplied it, and rewound it into three little skeins. I felt so smug having figured out how to increase the yield of my lovely Interlacements silk.

Yet, my troubles were not over. The pattern requires 144 squares, but I only had enough yarn to make around 100 or so. No problem. I promptly ordered a few mini-cones of 2/12 Gemstone Silk from Halcyon Yarn in Maine. I loved the way the woman answered the phone, "Halcyon YAHN," in her comforting I've-heard-it-all manner. The colors I ordered were blue, violet and magenta, plus a big hank of black to sew everything together. I checked the site today, and it seems not all of my colors are still available. A lesson here: always buy more than enough to finish your project!

I thought I had saved enough of my main color (the Interlacements silk) to crochet around all of the final squares. Nope. Ten of them needed a little finagling. I scrounged scraps of silk from the bottom of my knitting bag and cut off long ends from the early squares where I had left generously long unused ends. And still, to make ends meet (pardon the pun), I dared to border a few of the last squares with a little of the blue Cascade silk I had remaining from the Myrtle Leaf Shawl.

Never you mind! It will all be okay, I promise. Photos of the finished cardigan are forthcoming. Sewing has commenced. And I love each and every little square, no matter how troublesome. Replication has ceased. End transmission.