You are the boss of the yarn.

Remember: You control the yarn, not the other way around.

I bought a ball of self-striping yarn - I can't remember when I picked it up, but it was obviously an impulse purchase. It's Opal Schafpate in the colourway Kate.

Schafpate is a wonderful sock yarn - I've knit a pair of socks in it before and I love them. It's got the sturdiness I expect from a no-nonsense German sock yarn, and just a bit more softness. The wool comes from a German flock and the project is specifically aimed at supporting local shepherds - more on the Schafpate project here.

There have been dozens of colourways of Schafpate - they seem to drop like seasonal fashion, passing quickly in and out of the range. And they're all self-striping 'faux Fair Isle' style, for better or for worse. I happen to like this yarn so much that I would be very happy to have a range of solid colours to supplement the striping ones, but ah well.

So here is the manufacturer image of the yarn I bought:

The purple? Love it. The green? Love it. The gentle, pale gradient between the two? LOVE IT.

...The bitty bits of blue and white speckles? Do not love it.

This ball sat in purgatory in my stash for a long, long time. Why was I so foolish to buy a yarn with a fatal flaw? I knew I could never love socks that interrupted a beautiful colour gradation with those loud, rude speckles.

And then I remembered that this is not buying a whole sock out of a catalogue: This is knitting. I control the yarn, the yarn does not control me.

I started knitting, and when I hit a section with speckles, I simply cut it out. Then I wound a new ball of the colours I wanted.

This had the fun side-effect of parcelling my yarn out into pre-defined repeats, allowing me to pre-wind the balls for the second sock and know exactly how much yarn I'll need.

And now I'm knitting socks that I love. All is as it should be.

~Joyuna