Non-knitters' responses are always interesting.

I suppose a mile of yarn is long. (Picturing Napoleon Dynamite dragging his action figure behind the school bus on an extra-long string). For a long-sleeved sweater for a not-tiny woman, though, it's not unexpected. The pattern I am using calls for 1700 yards of yarn (well, based on the number of balls required) for my size.

(This is why I never try to estimate how many stitches are in something I'm working on; I would despair too fast.)

Usually I wind up with yarn left over; I assume that designers knit up the smallest size and then extrapolate for the bigger sizes, and they tend to err on the conservative side. Because it's better to have people have yarn left over than to have people irritated because they don't have enough yarn, because of the dye-lot issue. And because yarns get discontinued unpredictably, and if you're like me, a yarn may marinate in-stash for a couple years before you get around to the sweater.

Leftover yarn is a lot less of a problem. You can make hats out of it, for yourself, for gifts, for charity. Or mittens. Or you can do odd-ball projects where you combine several coordinating yarns.

I do have a lot of oddballs hanging around. I sent a few off to a Ravelry friend who was planning an odd-ball project, and once in a while I drop a few off at the day-care center run out of my church if they're doing a craft project that requires yarn. Or I use them for toys. Or put them in the bag for the long-stalled multicolored striped crocheted afghan.

***

I spent most of yesterday working on quilt tops. I got all the blocks sewn together for that Mary Engelbreit-themed fabric one (the red, green, and yellow quilt) and I got most of one of the dog quilts done and sewed up all the 4-patch blocks for the other. I still have to put the borders on the Mary Engelbreit quilt and I do want to finish both the dog quilts if I can this weekend. (The dog quilts are very cute and very pink. I am going to have them quilted and ultimately donate them to Linus Project, and if they let you donate in someone's name, they're going to go in Faith's name.)

I also want to run to the local quilt shop today; I have some cute Christmas themed fabrics I bought last year that I want to use for a quilt but I need either a plain solid or very subtly patterned background fabric for them.

But first, I need to finish writing these exams. (GenBio, which is about half done at this point, and Biostats, which will take longer)